•  \ 


^J 


/RON   AND    BYRONISM 
IN  AMERICA 


BY 


WILLIAM   ELLERY  LEONARD,  A.M. 


Submitted   in    Partial    Fulfilment    of    the    Requirements    for    the 

Degree  of  Doctor  of   Philosophy,   in  the   Faculty 

of  Philosophy,    Columbia   University 


THE 

RSi'TY   ) 

OF 

BOSTON 
J9°5 


The  Nichols  PRE6S  : 
Thos.  P.  Nichols,  Lynn,  Mass. 


• 


Decipit  exemplar  vitiis  imitabile 


O  imitatores,  serviim  pect/s,  ut  mihi  saepe 
bilem,  saepe  iocuvi  vesiri  movere  tumult  us. 

Horace,  Epistles  i,  xix. 


PREFACE. 


THIS  investigation  was  undertaken  at  the  suggestion  of 
Prof.  G.  R.  Carpenter,  in  partial  fulfilment  of  the 
requirements  for  the  doctorate  at  Columbia  University. 
Most  studies  of  American  literary  history  have  dealt  with 
a  few  distinguished  men  ;  the  milieu  in  which  they  lived, 
though  frequently  touched  on  in  criticism  or  biography,  is 
but  just  beginning  to  occupy  the  special  student.  These 
pages  form  a  very  modest,  but,  I  trust  not  useless,  contri- 
bution to  our  knowledge  of  that  milieu. 

America,  true  to  its  principle  of  democratic  freedom, 
has  expressed  itself  very  fully  :  every  man  or  woman,  who 
has  had,  or  has  thought  he  has  had,  something  to  sav,  has 
said  it — and  printed  it.  This  has  not  been  an  unmixed 
blessing  ;  the  result  has  often  served  to  make  us  ridiculous. 
But  it  may  also  serve  as  a  valuable  record  of  the  American 
mind,  which  in  its  weakness,  no  less  than  in  its  strength, 
has  its  interest,  even  where  it  has  not  always  its  attain- 
ment. An  accumulation  of  such  research  work  as  Prof. 
Cairns'  account  of  early  magazine  literature,  Prof.  Smyth's 
Philadelphia  Magazines,  and  Mr.  F.  H.  Wilkins'  Early 
Influence  of  German  Literature,  could  not  but  be  of  much 
service  to  that  future  historian  of  American  Literature, 
whose  task  may  be  rather  to  trace  conditions  and  tenden- 
cies—  provincialism  and  imitation,  the  beginnings  of  na- 
tionalism, the  finding  of  speech,  the  effect  of  social  and 
political  environment,  of  immigration  and  race-fusion,  etc. 
—  than  the  achievements  of  individuals. 


vi  Preface. 

This  essay  might,  perhaps,  have  been  planned  on  a 
more  speculative,  and,  for  that  reason  to  some  readers,  a 
more  interesting  basis;  but  the  materials  were  found  very 
recalcitrant  and  confusing,  and  it  was  felt  that  any  arrange- 
ment, other  than  a  chronicle  of  facts  under  simple  heads, 
would  have  but  a  specious  clearness.  Moreover,  as  it 
could  not  be  premised  that  the  reader  would  be  familiar 
with  the  greater  portion  of  the  materials  to  be  discussed, 
there  might  otherwise  have  seemed  an  unintentional  fac- 
titiousness  in  the  reflections. 

I  must  especially  thank  Prof.  K.  D.  Bulbring  of  Bonn, 
Germany,  whose  lectures  and  seminar  aroused  a  long  dor- 
mant interest  in  Byron,  and  Prof.  W.  P.  Trent  of  Columbia 
University,  whose  understanding  of  America  stimulated, 
after  a  prolonged  sojourn  in  Europe,  my  interest  in  our  own 
literary  life.  I  am  indebted  to  the  Library  of  the  Uni- 
versity at  Bonn  for  opportunity  to  gather,  during  the  summer 
before  last,  materials  for  the  introductory  chapter;  for  the 
rest  to  the  courtesies  of  the  Lenox  and  Astor  Libraries  of 
New  York,  the  Public  Library  and  the  Athenagum  of  Bos- 
ton, the  Library  of  Harvard  University,  and  that  of  Brown 
University,  where  Prof.  W.  C.  Bronson  obtained  for  me 
the  privileges  of  the  Harris  Collection  of  American  Verse. 
To  the  unfailing  courtesies  of  Mr.  Erb  of  the  Columbia 
Library,  in  common  with  many  students  of  the  University, 
I  owe  also  not  a  little.  I  am  indebted  to  my  father  for 
editorial  suggestions  and  to  The  Nichols  Press  for  courte- 
:n  the  printing.  But  circumstances,  attending  both 
the  preparation  and  the  proofreading,  may  have  somewhat 
hindered  me  in  turning  all  this  kind  assistance  to  best  ac- 
count, and  I  am  alone  responsible  for  any  errors  and  other 
shortcomings  that  the  reader  may  detect. 

William  Ellery  Leonard. 

Philadelphia,  Jan.  ig,  1905. 


CONTENTS 


Preface      v 

Chapter  I.  —  Introduction  —  Byron  on  the  Continent 

—  Literary  America  before  Byron i 

Chapter  II.  —  The  Beginnings.  —  Byron  in  Early  News- 
papers and  Magazines 19 

Chapter  III. — Byron's  Literary  Influence,   1815-1830  36 

Chapter  IV.  —  Byron's  Literary  Influence,   1830-1860  55 

Chapter  V.  —  Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence  .    ...  67 

Chapter  VI.  —  Byron  in  American  Criticism  —  Some 
Explanation  of  Byron's  American  Vogue — Con- 
clusion    100 

Appendix 119 

Bibliography 123 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTION.  —  Byron  on  the  Continent.  —  Literary 
America  before  Byron. 

GEORGE  BRANDES,  the  Dane,  calls  Byron  the 
starting  point  for  the  study  of  nineteenth  century 
literature.  He  is  speaking  of  the  Continent.  Despite  the 
tribute  to  Byron's  fame  in  the  two  new  English  editions  of 
Henley  and  of  Prothero  and  Coleridge  and  some  sugges- 
tion of  a  "Byron  revival,"1  despite  the  historical  or 
speculative  interest  of  special  students,  he  occupies,  it  is 
evident,  no  such  high  position  in  England  or  America  to- 
day. "  Byron  is  exploded  for  good,"  remarked  an  Eng- 
lish critic  two  or  three  years  since  to  Prof.  Bulbring,  of 
the  University  of  Bonn,  who  was  then  in  England  on  a 
tour  of  orientation,  and  an  American  essayist  writes  under 
the  rubric  "Is  Byron  Dead  ?"  Nor,  indeed,  has  Byron 
ever  occupied  precisely  that  position  in  England  and 
America.  For  all  the  admiration  of  Scott,  of  Moore,  of 
Shelley,  of  Arnold,  among  English  and  American  poets 
who  is  there  that  reveals  in  his  poetry  the  mastership  of 
Byron?  "There  is,"  says  Roden  Noel,  "  little  response 
in  our  literature,  as  there  is  in  that  of  the  Continent,  to 
what  is  strongest  and  highest  in  Byron."2     In  England 

1  See  The  Wholesome  Revival  of  Byron  by  P.  E.  More,  Atlantic  Monthly,  1898  ;  The 
Byron  Revival  by  W.  P.  Trent  in  The  Authority  of  Criticism  and  other  Essays,  Scribner, 
1899. 

2  Lord  Byron  and  his  Times  in  Essays  on  Poetry  and  Poets,  London,  188G.  He  says 
further  :  "  In  England  the  Byronic  growths  have  taken  their  nourishment  from  the  more 
morbid  elements  in  him." 


2  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

he  is  to  be  found  a  definite  force  among  the  minor  poets, 
as  Felicia  Hem ans,1  Leigh  Hunt,-  Sidney  Dobell,8  Barry 
Cornwall,'1  whom  Byron  called 

"  my  gentle  Euphues 
Who,  they  say,  sets  up  for  being  a  sort  of  moral  me"b 

Elizabeth  Norton,6  Roden  Noel,7  and  the  present  Laureate, 
whose  reply  to  Mrs.  Stowe's  famous  attack  is,  howrever, 
his  best  claim  to  be  named  with  Byron.  Of  England's 
great  there  is  Byron  in  the  first  volume  of  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing,8 something  of  his  mood  in  Swinburne,  and  it  has  been 
said9  —  I  will  not  say  it  —  in  Tennyson's  "divine  despair." 
What  influence  he  exercised  on  American  literature,  in 
the  stricter  sense  of  the  word,  will  appear  later.  Words- 
worth and  Keats,  not  Byron,  are  the  starting  points  for 
what  is  best,  poetically  best  at  least,  in  English  and 
American  literature  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

English  Byronism,  except  for  occasional  comparison,  it 
is  not  my  purpose  to  pursue  further.  But  in  America,  it  is 
certain  that  Byron  was,  up  to  the  Civil  War,  a  most  pop- 
ular model  and  that  Byronism  was  no  inconsiderable  phase 
in  the  history  of  our  taste  and  culture,  which  deserves, 
trivial  and  amusing  as  it  may  often  seem,  to  be  recorded 
with  some  seriousness.  First,  however,  for  the  sake  of  clear- 
ness and  perspective,  it  may  be  well  to  review  Byron's  influ- 
ence on  the  Continent  and  literary  America  before  Byron. 

I  See  Modern  Greece,  Restoration  of  Arts  to  Italy  ;  the  two  tales,  The  Widow  of  Cre- 
centius,  The  Abencerrage. 

-  See  Legend  of  Florence. 
"  See  The  Roman. 
4  See  Mercian  Colonna. 
"  Don  Juan,  xi,  59. 

II  See  'The  Dream,  The  Child  of  the  Isles. 

7  See  "  Byron's  Grave  "  in  appendix  to  his  Life  of  Byron,  1890. 

"  Matthew  Arnold's  early  poem  "Alaric  at  Rome,"  recited  in  Rugby  School,  June  12, 
1840,  imitated  Childe  Harold,  and.  Bulwer's  early  poems  are  Byronic. 
'•'  Namely,  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  Oct.,  1900. 


Byron  on  the   Continent. 


Byron's  vogue  abroad  was  immense  long  before  his 
death.  His  poems  were  translated  almost  as  they  ap- 
peared. Contemporary  newspapers  there,  as  in  England 
and  America,  bear  witness  that  his  portrait  was  as  familiar 
as  Napoleon's1  and  to  be  seen  in  all  the  shop  windows. 
Melancholy  poseurs  were  wearing  Byron  collars  and  cul- 
tivating passion  and  remorse.2  But  he  meant  more  to 
great  souls.  Goethe,  who  followed  his  career  closely,3 
translated  passages  from  Don  Juan  and  Manfred  and 
sent  the  poet  poetical  best  wishes  as  he  embarked  for 
Greece.  The  early  dead  Euphorion,  symbolic  birth  of 
the  classical  and  romantic  spirit,  in  the  second  part  of 
Faust, i  is  none  other  than  Byron,  as  Goethe  has  elsewhere 
testified.  Of  French  celebrities,  Madame  de  Stael  knew 
him  personally.  In  Italy  he  became  among  poets  and 
politicians,  naturally,  almost  one  of  them,  and  the  poetic 
ideal  of  many  a  younger  Italian,  who,  like  Guerazzi,  de- 
clared Byron  "  the  dear  guide  of  his  thoughts."5 

Nor  did  Byron's  voice  cease  to  be  heard  on  the  Conti- 
nent when  it  was  hushed  amid  the  marshes  of  Missolonghi, 
but  it  echoed  on  to  the  Caucasus,  to  the  Pyrenees  and  be- 
yond :  and  the  people,  impoverished  by  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  politically  crushed  by  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  so- 
cially emasculated  by  law  and  custom,  heard  in  that  echo 

1  See  Essais  by  Otto  Gildemeister,  Berlin,  1897. 

2  In  Paris,  for  example,  "//  etait  de  mode  alors  dans  I'ecole  romantique  d'etre  pale, 
livide,  verddfre,  un  pen  cadavereux,  s'il  etait  possible.  Cela  donnait  Pair  fatal,  byronien, 
giaour,  d'evore  par  les  passions  et  les  remords."  —  Th.  Gautier,  Histoire  du  Romantisme, 
chap.  iii. 

3  See  Lebensverhdltnis  zit  Byron,  Werke,  1833,  xlvi,  221-5;  Tages  tend  Jahresheften, 
1817;  Gesprdche  tnit  Eckermann,  passim  ;  Brandl,  Goethe's  Verhdltnis  zu  Byron,  Goethe 
Jahrbuch,  vol.  xx,  1899  ;  George  Ticknor's  Life,  Letters  and  fournals,  for  Oct.  25, 1816. 

4  Act  iii ;  read  especially  the  Trauergesang. 

5  "Scoria  amorosa  de  snoi pensieri." 


4  Byron  and  Byron  ism  in  America. 

its  universal  speech.  Wordsworth  was  at  once  insular 
and  reflective  in  his  poetry  of  optimism  and  of  freedom; 
Shellev  had  lived  and  sung  in  a  world  of  abstractions  and 
dreams ;  Goethe  from  the  Olympus  of  art  was  considering 
all  phenomena  of  human  life  with  that  serenity,  which,  to 
such  chafed  spirits  as  Borne,1  seemed  almost  criminal  in- 
difference ;  and  Schiller,  than  whom  no  nobler  idealist 
and  patriot  ever  breathed,  was  too  philosophic,  emphasized 
too  soberly  law  in  freedom,  and  believed  too  profoundly 
that  the  test  of  maturity  in  nations,  as  in  men,  was  the 
recognition  of  this  law2  to  meet  these  turbulent  times  that 
tried  men's  souls.  He  died,  moreover,  early  in  the 
period.  Bvron  alone  had  felt  and  grasped  the  facts  and 
I  conditions,  the  complex  mood  of  world-sorrow,  cynicism, 
revolt,  freedom,  hope.  Byron,  above  all  men,  had  con- 
tributed "to  reestablish  in  the  heart  of  crushed  and  ser- 
vile Europe  sentiments  of  dignity  and  human  liberty."3 

When  the  better  days  came,  his  influence  still  endured 
by  virtue  of  his  "  sincerity  and  strength,"  his  profound 
appeal  to  the  emotions  as  in  Childe  Harold  and  the  lyrics, 
and  his  intellectual,  though  not  spiritual,  insight  in  Don 
Juan,  into  those  social  vices,  which  transcend  any  particular 
time  or  place.  His  poetry,  without  the  subtle  verbal  felic- 
ity which  makes  Keats'  Hyperion  or  Goethe's  Iphigenie 
forever  untranslateable  and  only  a  half  delight  to  any  but 
a  master  of  the  English  or  German,  probably  loses  less 
than  that  of  any  poet,  equally  great,  when  well  done  into 

1  See  his  Tagebiieher.  It  was  he  who  said  :  li/cli  gd.be  alle  Preudeu  meines  Lebens 
fiir  einjahr  von  Byron's  Schmerzen  kin." 

"  Was  ist  denn  reif  sein,  ivenn  nicht  ein  Gesetz 
Fiir  sich  undfiir  die  Sterne  anerkennen  ?  " 

—  Wallenstein. 

3  "A  ridestare  nel  cuore  dell'  Europa  serva  ed  avvilita  sentimentidi  dignith  e  liberth 
umana."  —  Guiseppi  Chiarini,  Lord  Byron  nella  politico,  e  nella  letteratura  delict  prima 
meth  del  secolo.    Nuova  Antologia,  1891. 


Byron  on   the   Continent.  5 

another  tongue  ;  '  and  its  defects  of  harshness,  bad  gram- 
mar, awkward  and  bizarre  constructions,  so  obvious  to 
us,  the  foreigner  the  more  readily  pardons,  feeling  them 
less.  Its  defects  in  architectonics  are  to  him  of  less 
importance,  for,  if  a  long-growing  impression  does  not 
mislead  me,  the  Continental  reader  lays  relatively  more 
stress  on  the  spirit  as  such,  than  has  artistic  England 
of  the  past  seventy-five  years.  Its  blasphemy  and  ob- 
scenity, in  so  far  as  they  are  real,  have  never  been  such 
a  stumbling  block  on  the  Continent2  as  in  England  and 
America. 

The  list  of  Continental  poets  who  came  under  Byron's 
spell  is  long  and  distinguished.  In  Denmark  there  was 
Frederich  Paludan-Muller  ; 3  in  Norway,  Heinrich  Werge- 
land.  In  Germany,  Wilhelm  Muller  and  Chamisso  wrote 
hymns  on  Byron's  death.4  His  personality  attracted  both 
novelists5  and  dramatists.6  His  tales  and  episodes  in  his 
poems  have  been  frequently  worked  out  into  novels  and 

1  Let  the  reader,  who  has  the  German  Sprachgefiihl,  peruse  Childe  Harold  in  the 
splendid  Spenserians  of  Gildemeister.  Betteloni's  translation  of  Don  Juan  has  appealed 
to  Italians,  at  least,  as  "in  alcuni parti  assohitamente  meraviliosa."  For  those  who  read 
Dutch  it  maybe  interesting  to  look  at  Beet's.  In  Russia  Schukoffskrs  Chillon  is  said  to 
be  a  classic. 

2  Vet  the  myth  of  Byron's  evil  origin,  that  caused  good  English  dames  to  faint  when  he 
entered  the  room,  once  received  some  credence  even  in  Spain.  Don  Marcelino  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  in  a  preface  to  Poetnas  dramaticos  de  Lord  Byron  (Madrid,  1886),  translated  by 
Don  Jose  Alcala  Galiano,  bears  indirect  witness  when  he  says :  "Byron  no  es  ya  para 
nosostros  aquel poeta  satanico  o  endiablado  qice  llenaba  de  terror  a  nuestros padres." 

3  Cf.  "■Til  os  i  Danmark  forplanter  hans  Aand  sig  gjennem  Frederik  Paludan- 
Miillers  fortaellende  og  bibelskdramatiske  Digde.  By  ions  himmehtormende  Aand  faar 
her  Daaben ,  hans  store  politiske  Trods  bliver  til  en  Eneboers  hvasse  Satire,  hans  flaengende 
Haan  omformes  til  Udtryk  for  en  kristelig  og  borgerlig  Morals  Domtnedag  over  Spids- 
borgerlighedens  Forfaengelighed  og  Nydelsessyge.''  —  Brandes,  Byron,  in  Fremmede 
Personligheder,  Copenhagen,  1889. 

4  See,  respectively,  Totenklage  in  the  Griechen  Lieder,  1824  ;  and  Lord  Byron's  Letzte 
Liebe,  1827  ;  also  Zedlitz's  Toten  Krauze,  1827. 

5  See  Ernst  Wilkomm,  Lord  Byron,  ein  Dichterleben,  1839,  8  vols.  In  England  we 
have  Lady  Caroline  Lamb's  Glenarvon,  1816,  a  personal  attack,  and  Disraeli's  Venetia, 
1837. 

u  See  Carl  Bleibtreu,  Lord  Byron's  Letzte  Liebe,  Byron's  Geheimnis,  the  latter  in 
1900  ;  and  Rudolph  Gottschall,  Lord  Byron  in  Italien,  1847. 


6  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

poems,1  while,  since  1875,  there  have  been  no  less  than 
five  dramas  on  Marino  Falicro?  all  related  to  Byron  as 
source.  His  gloom  is  reflected  in  the  lyrics  of  Grillparzer, 
of  Geibel,  who  also  has  Greek  poems  reminiscent  of 
Byron,  of  Lenau,  and  of  Heine,  who  is  "  the  German 
Byron."8  In  his  youth  Heine  fancied,  like  many  a  less- 
gifted  aspirant,  that  his  mind  was  cast  in  a  similar  mould, 
and  his  early  drama  Ratcliff  betrays  its  model  by 
its  motto  and  its  wild,  dark  character.  Platen's  Vcncz- 
ianische  Sonetteu,  in  mood  and  imagery,  recall  CJiildc 
Harold,  as  do  Zedliz's  Totcn  Krauze  and  Heine's  Reise- 
bilder.  Grtin's  Schutt,  especially  part  one,  has  similarities 
with  The  Prisoner  of  Chillon.  It  was  in  Young  Ger- 
many [im  jungcn  Dcutschland)  that  the  shallower  imita- 
tion of  his  personality  and  his  tales  reached  its  height. 
But  as  a  champion  of  freedom4  he  remained  a  living  fire, 
which  flamed  out  anew  during  the  revolutionary  upheaval 
of  1848,  in  Freiligrath  and  others.  For  the  past  thirty 
years  he  has  been  more  a  literary  force,  chiefly  through 
his  dramas5  and  Don  Juan;  through  the  latter  he  has 
been,  also,   a  social    force.     As  early  as  1850,  Bottger0 

1  The  Prisoner  of  Chillon  and  Mazeppa  were  made  into  prose  romances  and  Parasina 
into  a  drama.    Gautier,  in  France,  also  dramatized  Parasina. 

2  Namely,  by  Lindner,  Kruse,  Greif,  Effendi  and  Walloch.  There  is  one  also  by 
Delavigne,  in  French. 

3  See  Felix  Melchior,  Heinrich  Heines  Verhalttiis  zu  Lord  Byron,  Berlin,  3903. 

4  See  Brandes,  Der  Natiiralismus  in  England  (Ger.  trans,  p.  96)  for  a  discussion  of 
Byron  and  freedom. 

5  But  concerning  his  dramas  on  the  German  stage  :  "Dauerndes  Bcsitztum  der  deutschett 
Biihne  ist  ausser  Byron's  Manfred — dieser  aber  anch  nur  durch  die  Musik  —  keines 
der  wertvolleren  englischen  Dramen  nach  Shakespeare geblieben.  Versuche  der  Auffiihr- 
ung  sind  in  langen  Zwischenrdumen  mit  alien  grb'sseren  Stiicken  Byron's  wiederlwlt 
gemacht  ivorden ;  mit  daurendem  Erfolg  niemals.  Man  hat  seine  Poscari  und  den 
Marino  Faliero  gespielt,  hat  sich  selbst  an  den  Cain  gewagt,  mit  und  ohne  Musik,  und 
vor  bald  zwei  Jahren  wurde  eine  Auffiihrung  des  Sardanapalus  in  Berlin  versucht 
.  .  .  .  In  friiheren  Zeiten,  war  Sardanapalus  eines  der  Lieblingsstiicke  der  Berliner 
Oper,  ndmlich  als  —  Ballet .'"  — Eduzrd  Engel  in  the  Hamburger  Premden-Blall,  for 
Sept.  19, 1903. 

c  The  first  German  to  translate  Byron  entire  ;  he  wrote  also  two  Byronic  tales. 


Byron  on  the   Continent.  7 

imitated  Don  Juan  in  his  Eulensfiegel ';  Oelschlager's 
Novellen  in  Octavcn  (1882)  in  rhymes  and  humor,  and 
Grosse's  Volkramslied  (1890)  in  attitude  toward  society 
both  acknowledge  Don  Juan.  This  masterpiece  now  so 
neglected  at  home  and  with  us,  is  studied  in  Germany 
"  to  learn  from  it  how  to  represent  realistic  Weltschmer z 
and  the  life  of  the  present  age."1  The  poet,  who  long 
figured  as  a  leader  in  romanticism,  has  become  the 
teacher  of  realists.2 

In  France,3  Lamartine,  who  wrote  in  1825  Le  Dernier 
chant  du  -pclerinage  de  Childe  Harold  in  Alexandrine 
couplets,4  had  most  of  Byron's  Weltschmerz ;  5  Hugo  in  his 
oriental  poems  and  in  those  odes  of  pain,  doubt  and  irony, 
is  often  Byronic,  but  he  was  inspired  most  by  Byron's 
passion  for  liberty,  as  was  Delavigne  in  his  Messeniennes  ;  6 
De  Vigny  was  attracted  chiefly  by  his  orientalism,  es- 
pecially that  of  the  Biblical  dramas.  Musset,  of  all  poets, 
perhaps  Byron's  most  legitimate  successor,7  and  one  of 
his  most  rapt  worshippers, s  displays  most  of  the  cynicism 

1  Prof.  Ackermann,  Lord  Byron,  Heidelberg:,  1901.  What  Ackermann  means  by  "  real- 
istischer  Weltschmerz'''  can  be  illustrated  by  a  comment  on  Bleibtreu.  His  is  "Welt- 
schmerz, aber  nicht  in  romantischer  Verklarung,  wic  in  der  ersten  Hdlfte  des  Jahrhunderts , 
sonde rn  mit  der  realistischen  Bitterkeit  itnd  Niichtemheit  der  Gegenwart." 

2  "It  is  in  Don  Juan  that  Byron  stands  forth  as  the  founder  and  precursor  of  modern 
realism  in  poetry."  —  Edinburgh  Review,  Oct.,  1900. 

3  ''Unpoete  etranger ,  jusqu 'alors  inconnu  de  la  plus  grande  partie  des  lecteurs  fran- 
cais  a  conquis  en  pcu  de  temps  une  reputation  colossale  parmi  nous  ....  bientbt 
V admiration  a  pris  le  caractire  d'un  engouement  veritable.  On  n  'a  plus  parte  que  des 
chefs  d'oeuvre  de  lord  Byron.''''  —  Revue  Encyclopedique,  Jan.,  1820,  article  by  Thiesse. 

4  Translated  in  the  40's  by  W.  W.  Smith,  of  Charleston,  S.C,  into  Spenserians. 
6  A  contemporary  skit  runs  : 

"Je  n'aime pas  Fenelon 
Ni  ce pauvre  Racine 
Maisfaime  bien  lord  Byron 
Et  Monsieur  Lamartine." 
—  From  the  Paris  journal,  Lc  Diable  Boiteux,  Oct.  8,  1823. 

6  Among  Fauriel's  Chants  pop  ulaires  de  la  Grcce  moderne  some  are  translations  from 
Byron. 

7  " C 'est  Alfred  de  Musset  qui  rapelle  le  plus  souvent  lord  Byron  par  la  forme  comme 
par  le  choix  de  ses  sufets."  —  Alex.  Buchner,  Etude  sur  lord  Byron,  Cherbourg,  1874 . 

8  See  Confessions  d'un  enfant  du  siecle. 


8  Byron  and  Byron  ism  in  America. 

of  J)on  J  nan.  lie  has,  however,  as  in  Mardoche  and 
Namouna ,  a  more  delicate  fancy  and  a  lighter  touch. 

In  Italy,  besides  Silvio  Pellico,  Ugo  Foscolo,  Manzoni, 
the  head  of  her  romantic  movement,  and  thatnoble  pessimist, 
Leopardi,1  there  was  Giovanni  Berchet,  who,  like  Byron, 
hated  Austria,  and  figures  as  "the  Italian  Byron."  The 
political  situation  forced  Berchet  into  exile  and  he  made  his 
home  in  Greece  thereafter,  and  these  two  circumstances, 
somewhat  paralleled  in  Byron's  own  career,  were  not  with- 
out import  for  the  Byronic  elements  in  his  poetry.  A 
writer2  in  the  Nuova  Antologia  declares,  "  In  general,  one 
can  say  that  in  all  our  political  and  romantic  literature  from 
1820  ....  the  influence  of  Byron  is  more  or  less  to 
be  felt."  Only  the  specialist  would  have  the  data  to  con- 
trol so  bold  a  statement,  still  its  very  possibility  is  signifi- 
cant;  in  England  or  America  it  would  be  sheer  nonsense. 

In  Spain,  Mariano  Jose  de  Lara  (1809-37),  Angel 
Saavedra  de  Rivas  and  Jos6  de  Espronceda  ^1810-42) 
may  be  named.  Espronceda,  handsome,  dissipated,  an 
adventurer  and  liberal  in  politics,  whose  fiery  poetry  is 
drawn  from  his  own  troubled  times  and  troubled  life, 
became  inevitably  "the  Spanish  Byron."  His  famous 
Estudiante  de  Salamanca  and  El  Diablo  mundo  are  mod- 
elled on  Don  Juan?  In  a  Spaniard,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, in  Castelar,  Byron  won  his  most  enthusiastic  biog- 
rapher. 

Russian    poetry,   as  Russian  society,  is    peculiarly  in- 

1  See  Giulio  Monti,  Giacomo  Leopardi  e  Giorgio  Byron,  Studi  Critici,  Firenze,  1887 ; 
also  Francesco  de  Sanctis,  Studio  sul  Leopardi,  Napoli. 

2  Chiarini,  see  supra. 

8  Caspar  Nunez  de  Arce,  who  voiced  the  Spanish  point  of  view  in  calling  Byron  "  el 
mas  grande  de  los  poetas  ingleses  del  siglo  presen/e,"  wrote  his  Ultima  lamentacibn  de 
Lord  Byron  in  ottava  rima.  The  17th  edition  was  printed  at  Madrid  in  1881.  Ottava 
rima  verse  had  long  been  employed  in  Spain  ;  but  Don  Juan  may  have  increased  its  pop- 
ularity. 


Byron  on  the   Continent.  9 

debted  to  Bvron,  and  her  two  greatest  poets  were  his  not 
unworthy  disciples.  Pushkin,1  at  one  time  exiled  to  the 
Caucasus,  wrote  tales  whose  heroes  and  women,  as  in  the 
Prisoner  of  the  Caucasus  (1821),  were  like  Byron's. 
His  masterpiece  was,  however,  Eugen  Ondgen  (1823- 
1S31).  This  draws  on  both  Don  Juan  and  Childe 
Harold,  but  throughout  Pushkin  remains  Russian.  Its 
descriptions  and  its  people  are  depicted  from  his  en- 
vironment. The  Russian  critic,  Bielinski,  has  called 
it  an  encyclopedia  of  Russian  life.2  Lermontoff,  in  the 
opinion  of  a  Russian  friend8  of  the  writer,  betrays  even 
more  of  Bvron's  influence  than  does  Pushkin.  His  Hero 
of  the  Caucasus,  in  its  women  and  grand  mountain  pic- 
tures, reminds  one  of  the  tales  and  the  third  canto  of 
Childe  Harold.  Both  were  inspired  to  freedom  by  Byron, 
and  Pushkin  is  recognized  as  the  forerunner  of  Nihilism. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  Poles  in  their  tragic  national  sor- 
row found  in  Byron  a  sympathetic  figure  ;  and  Mickiewitz 
said  with  some  degree  of  truth,  "  Byron  is  the  secret 
tie  which  binds  the  literature  of  the  Slavs  with  that  of  the 
West."  Political  tyranny  was  not  the  only  factor  in 
Bvron's  Russian  popularity.  It  was  unquestionably  aug- 
mented by  the  contrast  between  the  barbarism  of  the  East 
and  the  desire  for  West  European  culture,  and  presumably 
also  by  the  circumstance  that  the  aristocracy,  which  from 
social  position  had  been  attracted  to  Byron,  was  the  centre 
not  only  of  the  intellectual  but  of  the  liberal  movement.4 

1  See  Otto  Harnack,  Puschkin  unci  Byron,  Essais  unci  Studien,  Braunschweig,  1899. 

2  See  Herzen,  Du  developpententd.es  idees  revolutionaires  en  Russie,  London,  1858,  on 
On'dgen;  also  Mickiewitz,  Vorlesungen  iiber  sdavische  Literatur,  Leipzig,  1843.  Copious 
translations  from  Pushkin  are  to  be  had  in  the  new  anthology  of  Russian  poetry,  edited 
by  Prof.  L.  Werner  of  Harvard. 

3  Alexius  Batschinski,  instructor  in  Chemistry  at  the  University  of  Moscow. 

4  In  Greece,  to  judge  from  conversations  with  Athenian  students  in  German  Universi- 
ties, Byron  is  widely  read,  though  not  widely  imitated.  He  is  remembered  chiefly  as  a  soldier, 
and  his  portrait  in  military  costume  hangs  on  the  walls  of  many  Greek  homes.  Byron's 
centenary  was  celebrated  in  the  land  of  his  death  and  scarcely  noticed  in  the  land  of  his  birth. 


io  Bxruu  and  Byronism  in  America. 

Thus  we  see  Byron  helping  to  shape  the  destinies,  artis- 
tic, political  and  social,  of  European  nations.1  In  Byron's 
day  conditions  in  America  were  very  different.  America 
had  freed  herself  from  whatever  oppression  she  had  en- 
dured ;  America  was  new  ;  the  hopeful  national  feeling 
born  of  the  war  of  1812  was  indeed  contemporary  with  the 
rise  of  Byron  ;  society  was  crude,  unsophisticated,  but  at 
core  healthy ;  Byron  could  not  be  a  great  social  and 
political  force.  His  appeal  was  personal  and  literary  and 
this,  too,  usually  in  a  bourgeoise  fashion,  in  the  Byronic 
pose,  in  the  Byronic  Spenserian  and  ottava  rima,  in  the 
Byronic  lyric.  De  Musset  wore  a  Byron  collar,  but  he 
wrote  La  Nuit  dc  Dccembi-c ;  Byron's  American  followers 
had  little  more  than  the  collar.  What  was  but  a  secondary 
phase  of  Byron's  effect  on  the  Continent,  namely,  Byron- 
ism in  its  unworthy,  undignified  sense,  Byron  travestied, 
appeared  with  us  most  dominant  and  almost  alone.  In- 
deed, the  reader,  who  is  in  a  general  way  not  unfamiliar 
with  Byron  and  with  earlier  literary  America,  could  surmise 
it  must  have  been  so. 

II. 

Literature,  especially  verse,  had  always  been  in  America 
hardly  more  than  an  intellectual  exercise,  yielding  some 
facile  and  pleasing  but  lifeless  work  among  persons  of 
education  and  taste,  yet  more  that  was  equally  facile  but 
utterly  crude  among  persons  of  education  without  taste. 
The  mob  of  gentlemen  (and  ladies)  who  wrote  with  some 
ease  was,  relative  to  the  times,  large  and  restless.  They 
followed,  like  our  early  architects,2  the  approved  English 

1  See  Bibliography. 

2  Colonial  private  architecture"was  based  on  the  Queen  Anne  style  as  modified  by  wood  ; 
church  architecture  followed  Wren  and  Gibbs.  Government  buildings  were  small  owing  to 
insufficient  grants  from  the  Crown,  but  were  English  as  far  as  they  were  anything.  See 
History  of  Architecture  by  A.  D.  F.  Hamlin,  chap,  xxvii,  with  bibliography  on  American 
Architecture. 


Literary  America  Before  Byron.  n 

models.  Cotton  Mather  and  other  "New  England  Ele- 
gists"1  had  imitated  the  conceits  of  Donne,  Crashaw  and 
Quarles  ;  Michael  Wiggelsvvorth,  the  jingles  of  Sternhold 
and  Hopkins  ;  Benjamins-Thompson,  "ye  renowned  poet," 
had  sung  King  Philip's  war  in  Dryden's  heroics ;  Mather 
Byles  marked  the  new  and  absorbing  influence  of  Pope, 
which  can  be  traced  even  down  to  Dr.  Holmes  ;  Godfrey 
and  Evans2  of  Philadelphia  refined  their  odes  after  Gray 
and  Collins;  Trumbull,  Fessenden  and  others  did  clever 
Hudibrastic  burlesques  on  American  affairs ;  Dwight  and 
Barlow  polished  off  huge  epics  after  Wilkie,  Glover  and 
Blackstone.  Addisonian  essays  by  Virginia  planters  or 
New  England  merchant  kings,  with  lyrics  to  Amaryllis  by 
Corydon  and  Strephon,  began  to  adorn  the  now  flourish- 
ing magazines.3  Examples  need  not  be  multiplied.  Some- 
times we  note  conventionality  of  theme,  almost  always, 
even  where  there  is  something  personal  or  American  in 
theme,  the  same  self-conscious  conventionality  of  style,4 
whether  inane  or  fustian,  the  same  inability  to  find  or  to 
use  one's  own  voice.  Freneau's  little  lyric,  "The  Wild 
Honeysuckle,"  is  one  of  the  very  few  striking  exceptions 
down  to  1800.  There  were  no  professional  authors  before 
the  novelist  Charles  Brockden  Brown ;  and  the  only  writ- 
ing combining  literary  finish  with  independence  and  vital- 
ity, besides  that  of  Crevecoeur  and  Woolman,  had  been 
done  by  Edwards,  Franklin,  Thompson  and  Noah  Webster 
in  theology,  biography,   science  and  scholarship ;  by  Jef- 

1  See  Elegies  and  Epitaphs,  reprinted  in  "  The  Club  of  Odd  Volumes, "  1896. 
-  His  "Ode  on  the  Prospect  of  Peace  "  (1761)  Kettel  calls  "  decidedly  the  most  finished 
production  which  the  literature  of  our  country  could  exhibit  at  that  date." 

3  See  Check  List  of  American  Magazines  printed  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  by  Paul 
Leicester  Ford,  Brooklyn,  1889  ;  and  The  Philadelphia  Magazines,  1741-1850,  by  Albert 
H.  Smyth,  Phil.,  1892. 

4  This  reached  its  reductio  in  the  "  poems  "  of  Phillis  Wheatley,  a  negress  caught  young 
in  the  African  forests,  who  besang  Homer  and  addressed  "General  Washington  "  in  Popian 
heroics. 


i  2  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

ferson,  Madison  and  Jay  in  polemic  or  philosophic  politics  ; 
and  their  aim  had  not  been  to  produce  literature. 

After  the  passing  of  the  more  somber  phases  of  Puritan- 
ism, about  1730, 1  Boston,  with  "The  Muses'  Factories" 
adjacent,  began  to  develop  a  provincial  culture  of  which 
A  Collection  of  Poems  by  Several  Hands  (1744)  and  the 
Pictas  et  Gratulatio  (1762)2  are  characteristic  records. 
But  even  before  the  Revolution,  Philadelphia  was  out- 
stripping her  and  was  destined  to  be  our  chief  centre  of 
refinement  for  more  than  a  generation,3  when  she  finally 
yielded  to  the  circles  represented  by  the  Knickerbocker 
writers  of  New  York  and  by  the  North  American  Review 
essayists,  and  later  by  "  The  Stcfligcri,"  our  poets  preemi- 
nent, of  Boston.  It  was  a  Philadelphian  who  seems  first 
to  have  felt  and  voiced  the  ever  peculiar  misfortune  of  the 
American  bard 

"  cast 

Where  few  the  muse  can  relish, 
Where  all  the  doctrine  now  that's  told 
Is  that  a  shining  heap  of  gold 

Alone  can  man  embellish."4 

William  Cliffton,  in  some  lines  to  Gifford  prefixed  to  the 

Philadelphia  reprint   (1799)  of  the  Baviad  and  jWaviad, 

lamenting 

"  These  cold  shades these  shifting  skies 

Where  fancy  sickens  and  where  genius  dies," 

could  yet  rejoice  that 

"  There  still  are  found  a  few  to  whom  belong 
The  fire  of  virtue  and  the  soul  of  song." 

1  Cotton  Mather  died  in  1728. 

-  A  Harvard  collection  of  Greek,  Latin  and  English  verse,  suggested  by  a  similar  offer- 
ing to  the  new  King  from  the  English  Universities. 

3  See  the  introductory  chapter  on  Pennsylvania  in  Literature  of  A.  H.  Smyth's  Bayard 
Taylor,  American  Men  of  Letters  Series,  Boston,  1896  ;  and  A  Reader's  History  of  Ameri- 
can Literature  (p.  51)  by  T.  W.  Higginson,  Boston,  1903. 

4  From  Evans'  "  Ode  to  Godfrey." 


Literary  America  Before  Byron.  13 

Among  these  few  Dennie,1  founder  and  first  editor  of 
The  Portfolio,  was  chief.  His  pseudonym  was  Oliver 
Oldschool,  and  he  enjoyed  being  compared  with  Addison. 
His  conservatism  was  characteristic  of  that  small  urban 
class  which  had  the  fostering  of  culture  and  the  making 
of  verse  most  conscientiously  at  heart.  This  was  rather 
favorable  than  otherwise  to  Byron's  influence  in  America. 

There  were  also  literary  coteries  in  Charleston,  New 
York,  Boston  and  Hartford,  and  even  small  towns  like 
Worcester  patronized  letters  and  gossiped  on  the  English 
poets.2  And  away  from  the  cities,  the  rustic  bard  was 
beginning  to  dream  and  sing,  while  the  undeveloped  and 
untrained  taste  of  the  people  at  large  may  be  judged  from 
the  inflated  newspaper  style  satirized  by  "The  Hartford 
Wits,"  from  the  floods  of  indiscriminate  praise,  mistaken 
for  criticism,  to  be  found  in  the  prefaces,  notes,  etc.,  of 
obscure  books,  and  from  the  admiration  accorded  to  the 
first  American  Anthology,  the  unpromising  Columbian 
Muse.3 

A  brief  survey  of  the  best  American  verse  in  the  years 
just  before  Byron  shows  how  well  acquainted  were  the 
more  cultured  of  our  forefathers  with  current  English 
models  and  standards  of  criticism,  both  the  older  and  the 
newer.  The  above  conditions,  specifically  American, 
aside,  Byron  had,  it  appears,  the  same  literary  tendencies 
for  or  against  him  as  in  England,  when  he  awoke  one 
morning  and  found  himself  famous.  Of  the  American 
attitude  toward  his  person,  his  romantic  appearance  and 

1  Cf.  Moore's  Poems  Relating  to  America,  "  Epistle  to  the  Hon.  W.  E.  Spencer  "  with 
note.    Dennie  was  the  only  good  thing  the  genial  Irishman  found  here. 

2  Cf.  "The  popular  English  works  of  the  day  are  reprinted  in  our  country  ;  they  are 
dispersed  all  over  the  Union  ;  they  are  found  in  everybody's  hands  ;  they  are  made  the 
subject  of  everybody's  conversation."  —  W.  C.  Bryant,  in  the  North  American  Review, 
July,  1818,  paper  on  Solyman  Brown's  American  Poetry. 

3  New  York,  1794  ;  there  had  been  attempts  at  an  anthology  before  ;  see  Bibliography. 


14  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

life,  his  morals,  the  eccentric  good  and  evil  of  his  acts  and 
opinions,  I  shall  speak  later. 

The  once  celebrated  Robert  Treat  Paine  is  interesting 
as  a  Delia  Cruscan.  He  exchanged,  as  "  Menander,"  a 
series  of  effusions  with  Mrs.  Morton  as  "Philenia,"  "a 
lady  whose  title,"  reads  the  note  in  Paine's  collected  verse,1 
"to  the  first  place  among  our  native  poetesses"  was  "un- 
disputed and  indisputable."  Royall  Tyler,  over  the  signa- 
ture "Delia  Yankee,"  satirized  the  fashion  like  Gifford. 

Joseph  Story's  The  Power  of  Solitude?  with  mottoes 
from  The  Seasons,  The  Pleasures  of  Jlfemory,  and  The 
Pleasures  of  Imagination,  with  its  sentimental  frontis- 
piece3 (a  hermit,  book  in  hand,  before  a  cave  by  a  wooded 
river),  opens  in  smooth  imitation  of  The  Pleasures  of  Hope 
and  embraces  in  its  two  protracted  cantos  of  heroics  the 
moods,  the  ideas  and  the  style  prevalent  in  England  during 
the  latter  half  of  the  century.  The  moralizing,  the  pen- 
sive melancholy  natural  to  the  subject,  appearing  again  in 
his  "Monodies"  after  "The  Graveyard  School,"  the  mild 
humanitarian  sentimentality  —  he  describes  and  mourns  a 
country  girl,  seduced  and  deserted  —  the  sympathy  for 
evening  and  quiet,  neat  landscapes,  the  domestic  pictures, 
the  romantic  pleasures  in 

"  The  mouldered  turret  and  the  moonlight  main," 

reappearing  in  a  poem  "in  imitation  of  Lewis' Alonzo  and 
Imogene,"  and  the  interest  in 

"  fairy  tales  or  legendary  woe," 

reappearing  in  an  ode  on  "The  Druid  Rites,"  relate  him 
by  turns  to  Goldsmith,  Akenside,  Blair,  Campbell,  Gray, 

1  Works,  Boston,  1812. 

'-'  Second  Edition  "  with  other  poems,"  Salem,  1804. 

3  Engraved  by  J.  Aiken,  Newburyport. 


9a 


Literary  America  Before  Byron.  15 

Crabbe,    Collins,    Horace  Walpole,  "Monk"  Lewis  and 
Anne  Radcliffe.1 

The  Poems-  of  Susanna  Rowson,  "Preceptress  of  the 
!    Ladies'  Academy,  Newton,  Mass.,"  though  much  inferior, 
\    have  the  same    sentimentality  and    the   same    moralizing 
;   tone,  while  the  Poems3  "of  the  late  Dr.  John  Shaw"  show 
traces   of  young    "  Anacreon "   Moore    and    especially   of 
MacPherson.4     As  early  as   1786,  Joseph    B.   Ladd  had 
tried  at  Ossian  ;  Sewall's  Versions6  —  Ossian  in  heroics  — 
was  published  in  1810.      The  Foresters  of  the  ornitholo- 
gist Wilson6  distinctly  recalls  Cowper  ;    The  Sylphs  of  the 
Seasons,  delicate  work  by  the  artist  Allston,7  reminds  one 
somewhat  of  his  friend  Coleridge,  though  neither  is  imi- 
tative. 

If  the  somewhat  conventional  older  poetry  was  still  pop- 
ular, the  new  was  absorbed  here  as  rapidly  as  in  England 
and  its  effects  were  visible  at  once.  In  The  American 
Miscellany ,  Original  and  Selected*  for  example,  we  note 
Burns'  "  Wallace,"  bits  from  Paradise  Lost  and  Blair's 
Grave,  Shenstone's  Schoolmistress,  Collins'  Eclogues, 
which,  with  a  translation  of  a  Turkish  ode  in  heroics,  in- 
dicates the  charm  already  exercised  by  the  Orient,  Gray's 

1  For  "gruesome  romanticism"  in  America  see  especially  Freneau's  House  of  Night,  178G. 

-  Boston,  1804. 

s  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  1810. 

4  He  had  begun  also  a  poem  in  blank  verse,  "  The  Wanderer,"  to  exemplify  "  the  wild 
idea  "  that  "  genius  was  totally  incompatible  with  prudence,  and  that  superior  abilities  were 
a  full  excuse  for  extravagance  and  irregularity."  Though  he  had  sense  enough  to  abandon 
it,  '"the  wild  idea"  is  worth  noting,  as  indicative  of  the  new  romanticism.  This  "wild 
idea  "  was  soon  to  affect  the  Byronic  bards. 

6  Sewall  also  versified  Washington's  Farewell  Address,  Portsmouth,  N.H.,  1798.  The 
name  of  Trumbull's  popular  burlesque  is  also  an  indication  of  the  popularity  of  Ossian  as 
early  as  the  early  days  of  the  Revolution. 

0  In  The  Portfolio,  1809. 

;  It  possesses  something  of  the  imagination  and  terror  of  his  painting  but  nothing  of  its 
massiveness. 

8  Philadelphia,  1807. 


i6  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

"Elegy,"  Campbell's  "  Exile  of  Erin,"  Moore's  "Ballad 
of  the  Dismal  Swamp,"  Southey's  "Complaint  of  the 
Poor,"  and  most  noteworthy,  The  Ancient  Mariner  in  full. 
Among  original  poems  there  are  "Monodies"  and  "Ele- 
gies" on  the  death  of  Burns,  "The  Prostitute,"  described 
with  Goldsmith's  humanitarianism  and  Goldsmith's  num- 
bers, imitations  of  Moore's  lyrics  and  a  tale  of  Words- 
worthian  simplicity  on  "The  Idiot."1 

With  the  birth  of  the  national  spirit  in  1812,  and  for  a 
generation  following,  when  we  felt  that  we  had  justified 
ourselves  before  the  world,  before  England  especially,  in 
politics  and  in  material  progress,  the  long-increasing  de- 
sire for  an  American,  for  a  national,  literature  became 
almost  a  monomania  :  it  had  been  unanimously  decided, 
says  Lowell2,  that  we  should  have  one.  Great  singers 
ought  to  be  born  among  us  to  celebrate  American  scenery, 
deeds,  heroes;3  but  they  could  not  (it  seems  to  have  been 
felt  by  the  singers,  though  repudiated  by  some  of  the 
critics)  be  great  without  winning  England's  approval,  and 
without  casting  their  Americanism,  as  ever  before,  in  the 
moulds  furnished  by  England.      So  Bryant  became  "the 

1  The  style  was  early  parodied  with  us  as  in  England.  See  Fessenden's  skit,  "  Direc- 
tions for  doing  poetry  in  the  simple  style  of  Southey,  Wordsworth  and  other  modern  metre- 
mongers."  A  foot-note  says :  "  There  is  an  inflated  species  of  simplicity,  consisting  of 
exaggerations  of  thought  expressed  by  colloquial  barbarisms,  mixed  with  occasional  pom- 
posity of  diction,  which  it  is  the  object  of  the  above  to  ridicule."  But  he  is  thinking  espec- 
ially of  Southey.  It  is  to  be  found  appended  to  The  Terrible  Tr  adoration  (1803),  4th  Ed., 
Boston,  1837. 

2  In  his  review  of  Ward's  Percival ;  for  some  contemporary  documents  bearing  on  this 
point,  see  Bibliography. 

3  A  sensible,  restrained  and  noble  expression  of  the  idea,  which  was  so  universally 
trumpeted  up  and  down  the  land  without  sense,  restraint  or  nobility,  is  this  :  "  Why  should 
these  words,  Athenian,  Roman,  Asia  and  England,  so  tingle  in  the  ear?  Where  the  heart 
is,  there  the  muses,  there  the  gods  sojourn  and  not  in  any  geography  of  fame.  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut  River  and  Boston  Bay  you  think  paltry  places,  and  the  ear  loves  names 
of  foreign  and  classic  topography.  But  here  we  are ;  and,  if  we  tarry  a  little,  we  may  come 
to  learn  that  here  is  best."  —  Emerson,  Heroism,  Essays,  first  series  (1841) .  Dwight's  Green- 
field Hill  (1794),  was  an  early  result  of  this  feeling. 


Literary  America  Before  Byron.  17 

American  Wordsworth,"  Mrs.  Sigourney  "  the  American 
Hemans."  That  was  the  highest  praise.1  If  the  cultivation 
of  verse  had  been  before  but  an  exercise,  it  was  now  a 
duty.  Thus  an  increased  impulse  was  given  to  talent, 
but  no  less  to  vanity  and  fatuity.  Many  a  misguided 
author  lamented  in  a  prose  preface  our  native  poverty  in 
poetry  only  to  hint  that  perhaps  his  own  would  be  adjudged 
the  mighty  desideratum.2  Byron  was  a  great  poet  over- 
seas, an  English  poet.  This  was  itself  enough  to  make 
him  popular  and  a  popular  model ;  but  there  were  elements 
in  him,  not  always  his  greatest,  as  has  been  said,  which, 
though,  to  a  certain  extent,  sources  of  popularity  elsewhere, 
were  peculiarly  fitted  to  make  him  popular  and  the  popular 
model  with  us.  Yet  no  one  writer  ever  became  the  Ameri- 
can Byron  ;  Lowell  said  he  himself  knew  ten,  and  they 
were  in  sooth  legion. 

But  we  can  scarcely  reason  to  any  purpose  on  the  phe- 
nomena without  a  detailed  investigation.  I  must  ask  the 
student,  bearing  in  mind  what  has  been  remarked  on  both 
Byron  and  American  verse,  to  examine  now  a  considerable 
body  of  Byronic  material,  that  we  may  return  later  to  our 
proposition,  when  more  familiar  with  the  facts.  In  the 
remarks  on  Byron  in  European  literature,  attention  has 
been  called  but  to  names ;    the  student's  acquaintance  or 


1  Cf.  "  The  number  of  educated  and  cultivated  minds  is  rapidly  advancing  and  the  excess 
will,  whether  it  be  by  way  of  attaining  a  high  accomplishment,  of  finding  relief  from  ennui, 
or  of  earning  a  livelihood,  devote  their  leisure  exclusively  to  literature  and  thus  become  the 
Johnsons  and  the  Goldsmiths,  the  Southeys  and  the  Scotts,  the  Campbells  and  the 
Byrons  of  America."  —  Prof.  George  Tucker,  University  of  Virginia,  in  a  lecture  on  Ameri- 
can Literature  printed  in  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger  (Richmond),  vol.  iv.,  1838. 

Dearborn,  the  publisher  of  Byron"s  complete  works  (1836),  was  called  "the  American 
Murray.''    See  also  the  Fable  for  Critics. 

-  A  fellow  countryman  whom  fate  concealed  by  naming  him  Smith  (Elbert  H.)  may  be 
instanced.  In  1849  appeared  his  Ma-Ka-  Tai-me-she-Kia-Kiak  or  Black  Hawk,  "  a  national 
poem  in  six  cantos,''  which  was  "dedicated  to  all  the  lovers  of  the  arts  of  Poesy  and  the 
Belles  Lettres  and  to  all  the  friends  and  patrons  of  American  enterprise  and  home  industry." 


18  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

the  possibility  of  his  acquainting  himself,  has  been  taken 
for  granted.  Many  names  that  must  follow  are  either 
unknown  or  inaccessible,  and  those  that  are  not  will  still  be 
dwelt  on  for  completeness.     Thus  I  shall  quote  at  length. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE   BEGINNINGS.  — Byron    in    Early    Newspapers    and 

Magazines. 

GOODRICH,  the  prolific,  useful  and  sometime  famous 
Peter  Parley,  described  in  his  Recollections  l  the  be- 
ginnings of  Byronism  in  America,  more  especially  in 
New  England,  as  follows:  "Campbell's  Pleasures  of 
Hope,  and  Roger's  Pleasures  of  Memory"  he  says, 
"were  favorite  poems  from  1810-15  "  and  during  the 
same  period,  Thaddeus  of  Warsazv,  The  Scottish  Chiefs, 
The  Pastor's  Fireside,  by  Jane  Porter,  Sanford  and 
Mcrton,  by  Day,  Belinda,  Leonora,  Patronage,  by  Miss 
Edgeworth,  and  Caelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife,  by  Hannah 
More,  were  types  of  the  popular  taste  in  tales  and  ro- 
mances. It  was,  therefore,  a  fearful  plunge  from  this 
elevated  moral  tone  in  literature  into  the  dreary  if  not 
blasphemous  scepticisms  of  the  new  poet  ....  By 
degrees  the  public  eye  —  admitted  to  these  gloomy  cav- 
ernous regions  of  thought — became  adjusted  to  their  dim 
and  dusky  atmosphere  ....  What  was  at  first 
revolting  became  a  fascination  3  ....  In  about  five 
or  six  years  after  the  appearance  of  the  first  canto  (sic) 

1  Recollections  of  a  Lifetime,  2  vols.  New  York,  1857,  vol.  ii.,  p.  103ff. 

2  He  speaks  elsewhere  (vol.  ii.,  p.  100)  also  of  Scott's  early  popularity,  saying  that  his 
sister  had  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  by  heart,  and  that  "  all  young  poets  were  inoculated  with 
the  octa  {sic)  syllabic  verse." 

3  "Comments  on  French  society  and  on  some  of  Byron's  poems  also  show,  in  an  indi- 
rect way,  that  the  people  were  not  thoroughly  familiar  with  vice A  large  part 

of  would-be  fashionable  society  was  in  the  position  of  the  college  freshman  who  wants  to 
be  dissipated  and  doesn't  know  how."  —  W.  B.  Cairns,  On  the  Development  of  American 
Literature  from  1813-1833,  page  10,  Bulletin  of  Univ.  of  Wis.,  1898. 


20  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

of  Ckilde  Harold's  Pilgrimage  the  whole  poetic  world 
had  become  Byronic.  Aspiring  young  rhymsters  now 
affected  the  Spenserian  stanza,  misanthropy  and  scepti- 
cism '  ....  In  vain  ....  the  pulpit  opened 
its  thunders  against  them  {i.e.  his  poems)  ;  teachers 
warned  their  pupils,  parents  their  children.  I  remember 
as  late  as  1820  that  some  booksellers  refused  to  sell  them, 
regarding  them  as  infidel  publications.  About  this  time  a 
publisher  of  Hartford  declined  being  concerned  in  stereo- 
typing an  edition  of  them  ....  Byron  could  no 
more  be  kept  at  bay  than  the  cholera."2 

The  New  England  Galaxy  (Boston)  testified  : s  "  Every- 
thing from  the  poetical  mint  of  his  Lordship  passes  cur- 
rent and  is  bought  up  with  little  less  avidity  than  our 
merchants  in  the  China  trade  by  (sic)  Spanish  milled  dol- 
lars." And  George  Ticknor  wrote  in  his  diary  : 4  "He 
(Byron)  has  very  often  expressed  to  me  his  satisfaction  at 
finding  that  his  works  were  printed  and  read  in  America 
—  he  spoke  to  me  of  the  American  edition  of  his  poems0 

1  Every  village  had  "  its  little  Byron,  its  self-tormenting  scoffer  at  morality,  its  gloomy 
misanthropist  in  song."  —  H.  W.  Longfellow,  North  American  Review,  Jan.,  1832,  in 
Defense  of  Poetry.  For  personal  confessions  of  rustic  juvenile  Byronism,  see  My  Oivn 
Story  (p.  55-57J  by  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  Boston,  1903. 

2  He  says,  too,  that  Byron  paved  the  way  for  the  sensualities  of  Paul  de  Kock  and  the 
deism  of  George  Sand  (!). 

3  In  a  review  of  Bepfo  with  selections,  date  of  June  26, 1818. 

4  See  Life,  dates  of  June  20,  21, 1815. 

5  On  visiting  the  "  Ontario,"  in  Leghorn  harbor,  May  21,  1822,  Byron  found  in  one  of 
the  officer's  rooms  a  copy  of  the  New  York  edition  of  his  poems.  "  He  took  it  up  with 
every  appearance  of  pleasure  and  seemed  to  interpret  it  as  an  earnest  of  his  fame."  — 
George  Bancroft,  History  of  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie  and  Miscellaneous  Papers,  N.Y.,  1891. 
Byron  speaks  several  times  in  his  diaries  and  letters  with  similar  feelings  of  his  American 
reputation  ;  he  at  one  time  cherished  the  hope  to  visit  America  (see  "  Ode  to  Venice  "). 

From  this  volume  I  will  transcribe  a  little-known  anecdote  characteristic  of  Byron's 
popularity  and  gallantry,  as  well  as  of  the  American  lady  abroad.  This  same  day  Byron 
also  visited  the  frigate  "  Constitution."  "  One  lady  of  great  personal  beauty  put  out  her 
hand,  and  saying,  'when  I  return  to  Philadelphia  my  friends  will  ask  for  some  token  that  I 
have  spoken  with  Lord  Byron,'  she  gently  took  a  rose  which  he  wore  in  the  buttonhole  of 
his  black  frock  coat.  He  was  pleased  with  the  unaffected  boldness  and  the  next  day  sent 
her  a  charming  note  and  a  copy  of  Outlines  to  Faust  as  a  more  durable  memento."  What 
became  of  the  rose,  the  note,  and  the  Outlines,  I  cannot  say;  but  the  copy  of  Don  Juan, 
which  Byron,  a  day  or  so  later,  gave  to  Bancroft,  is  now  in  the  Lenox  Library. 


The  Beginnings.  21 

which  I  had  sent  him."  Though  deprecating  his  English 
Bards,  "  he  did  not  express  the  least  regret  when  I  told 
him  that  it  was  circulated  in  America  almost  as  extensively 
as  his  other  poems"  ....  "Byron  wondered," 
moreover,  "that  our  booksellers  could  find  a  profit  in  re- 
printing the  Hours  of  Idleness.'''  These  explicit  con- 
temporary documents  may  well  introduce  the  evidence 
below. 

For  the  earliest  beginnings  one  must  go  to  the  news- 
papers and  magazines.  Apart  from  some  news  of  the 
day  and  local  matter,  one  will  find  there  innumerable 
translations  from  the  Greek  Anthology  and  Horace,  orig- 
inal Latin  verses,  heroic  epistles  to  this  or  that  forgotten 
worthy  of  Boston,  New  York  or  Philadelphia,  spring 
poems  of  many  a  youth  "  who  has  just  passed  his  seven- 
teenth birthday,"  excerpts  from  and  imitations  of  the  Brit- 
ish poets  —  Shakespere,  Milton,  Waller,  Pope,  Southey, 
Moore,  Campbell,  Burns,  being,  perhaps,  the  most  pop- 
ular —  and  paragraphs  from  ' '  unpublished  poems  read  be- 
fore the  X Literary  Society,"  with  perennial  "  Fourth 

of  July  Odes."1  Relatively  more  space  seems  then  to 
have  been  given,  in  the  newspapers,  at  least,  to  poetry, 
while  the  magazines  differed  especially  in  their  depend- 
ence on  England,  on  her  books2  and  periodicals,  for  ideas 
and  material  in  both  prose  and  verse.3  One  notes  that  the 
reading  public  was  less  interested  in  the  daily  news  and 
more  confined  to  the  upper  classes  ;  but  the  display  of 
learning  proves  nothing  for  superior  culture.     On  the  con- 

1  There  are  two  signed  "  Mr.  W.  C.  Bryant  "  in  the  New  England  Palladium,  July, 
1814-15. 

2  The  shameless  activity  of  the  pirating  book-trade  precludes  an  explanation  on  the 
ground  of  relative  inaccessibility  of  complete  editions  of  new  works. 

3  Analogous  to-day  is  the  relation  which  the  German-American  press  with  its  600 
newspapers  and  magazines  bears  to  that  of  the  Fatherland.  Analogous,  too,  is  its  con- 
stant reiteration  of  its  unhappy  dependence. 


2a  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

trary,  the  Greek  translations  were,  apparently,  college 
exercises,  from  that  once  famous  text  book,  the  Graeca 
Major  a,  while  the  Latin  verses  were  often  incorrect  where 
they  were  not  filched  direct  from  the  college  classics. 

Byron's  name  and  influence  appear  soon,  and  with  ever 
increasing  frequency.  We  can  trace  Byron  in  book  re- 
views, book-sellers'  notices,  in  poems  "  addressed  to  his 
Lordship,"  in  extracts  from  his  works,  in  direct  imitations 
and  in  quantities  of  verse,  merely  hinting  of  Byron. 
These  elements  may  be  presented  in  order. 

The  earliest  reference,  which  has  come  under  my  no- 
tice, is  in  the  Portfolio  (Phil.)  for  March,  1809.  It  is  a 
single  page  review  of  the  Hours  of  Idleness.  One  would 
observe  with  amusement  to-day  that  it  follows  directly 
upon  a  review  of  Wordsworth's  Poems  where  the  apostle 
is  said  to  have  "  mistaken  silliness  for  simplicity."  A 
word  maybe  quoted:  —  "George  Gordon,  Lord  Byron, 
the  author  of  these  poems,  had  not  at  the  time  of  their  ap- 
pearance completed  his  twentieth  year.  Many  of  them 
are  written  with  spirit  and  force ;  some  with  much  sweet- 
ness "  —  the  critic  then  admits  defects  of  versification  and 
grammar,  but  pleads  for  the  youth  of  the  poet.  Two  se- 
lections are  appended.1  In  May,  181 1,  is  a  twelve-page 
original 2  review  of  the  English  Bards.  It  speaks  of 
Byron  as  one  of  Gifford's  retainers  and  sworn  foe  to  Jef- 
frey, reviews  his  quarrel,  alludes  to  his  Lordship's  being 
on  his  travels,  and  speculates  on  "  what  will  be  the  issue 
of  a  challenge  so  unequivocally  invited,"  when  the  defiant 
young  bard  comes  back.  Though  it  disapproves  of  the 
scurrility,  it  admits  the  "  bold,  honest  and  manly  indigna- 
tion "  and  discovers  "in  the  youthful  countenance  of  the 

1  "O  had  my  fate  been  joined  with  thine,"  and  "  Lachin  y  gair." 

2  Many  reviews  of  Byron  were  copied  bodily  from  English  periodicals. 


The  Beginnings.  23 

poet  the  large  temporal  vein  of  genius."  Very  high  praise 
is  given  to  Byron,  both  as  a  man  and  a  poet,  for  the  now 
famous  passage  on  Henry  Kirk  White,  which  is  reprinted 
in  full.  This  coming  so  early  is  noteworthy:  it  marks 
right  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  an  interest  in  his  per- 
sonality and  affairs1  and  a  genuine  appreciation  of  his  per- 
formance. We  may  turn  over  some  subsequent  volumes 
of  the  Portfolio.  In  the  number  for  February,  181 3, 
Childe  Harold  is  briefly  noticed  (one  page).  In  view  of 
the  above  citation  it  does  not  surprise  us  to  read  :  —  "  Lord 
Byron  was,  before  he  left  England,  unquestionably  in  the 
very  first  class  of  British  poets  of  the  present  day,  and 
Childe  Harold  will  not  only  sustain  but  increase  his  rep- 
utation." But  from  this  it  may  not  be  unjust  to  infer  that 
the  poem  did  not  take  America  so  immediately  by  storm 
as  it  did  London.  Goodrich  finds  the  reason  in  Byron's 
being  a  lord  and  a  man  of  fashion,  for  here,  says  the 
good  democrat,  "these  adventitious  attributes  were  less 
readily  felt  and  therefore  the  reception  of  the  new  poem 
was  more  hesitating  and  distrustful."2  The  Portfolio  of 
December,  1813,  and  January,  1814,  transcribes  the  whole 
of  The  Giaour.  The  number  for  July,  1814,  reviewing 
The  Corsair,  remarks,  "  The  most  fashionable  writer  now 
in  England  —  and  the  fashion  there  is  always  sure  to  be 
the  fashion  here  —  is  Lord  Byron."  Then,  "Mercy  on 
us  what  an  amateur  in  robbing  and  throat  cutting  this 
young  nobleman  must  be."     The  critic  does  not  take  it 

1  How  minute  this  grew  we  see  from  the  Portfolio,  May,  1819.  A  "Literary  Note" 
says  :  —  "The  Liverpool  Messenger  announces  that  a  new  poem  from  the  pen  of  Lord  Byron 
has  been  sent  to  England,  but  the  title  or  subject  it  has  not  been  able  to  ascertain."  A 
word  under  "Latest  from  Europe,"  in  the  New  England  Palladium  for  April  16,  1824, 
says  :  —  "  Lord  Byron  has  subscribed  $45,000  to  Greek  loan  fund."  This  is  especially  sig- 
nificant, for  communication  with  Europe  was  then  very  irregular  and  only  the  most  im- 
portant events  were  chronicled.  "  The  new  poem  "  must  have  been  the  first  two  cantos  of 
Don  Juan,  finished  Jan.  20,  of  that  year. 

•  Recollections,  vol.  ii.,  p.  100. 


24  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

seriously  :  "  it  is  written  ad  captandtim  valgus"  and  Lara 
he  burlesques  condescendingly  in  his  prose  critique  by 
dashes,  ejaculations  and  incoherence.  Coming  down  to 
October,  1822,  we  observe  a  different  tone;1  of  certain 
"  Lines  to  my  Daughter,"  we  are  told  that  they  are 
"wholly  free  from  that  daring  wickedness  and  loathsome 
licentiousness  which  distinguishes  the  head  of  the  Satanic 
School,"  and  one  does  not  wonder,  for  they  are  spurious.2 
Byron's  dramas  received  less  critical  attention ; 3  Don 
Juan  is  first  criticised  in  1823 4  as  "a  terrible  poem  for 
youthful  readers,"  the  work  of  a  "titled  profligate  "  and 
"  licentious  bard."  The  "  sneers  at  that  character  on 
which  in  the  female  sex  the  happiness  of  life  depends,  a 
virtuous  and  modest  woman,"  are  dreadful;  and  "how 
could  anyone  impiously  write  and  print  two  such  lines  as 
these  :  — 

'  'T  is  strange  the  Hebrew  noun  which  means  I  am 
The  English  always  use  to  govern  damn  ? ' " 5 

Consistency  was  a  jewel  not  always  worn  by  Byron's 
American  critics.0     The    reviewer  prognosticates  in  con- 

1  The  editorship  had  meanwhile  changed  hands  and  Byron  had  begun  on  Don  Jzian. 

2  "  How  many  insipid,  gross  and  pitiful  productions  have  been  read  and  admired, 
quoted  and  lauded  by  our  sagacious  and  discriminating  wits,  merely  because  the  title  page 
supposed  them  to  be  from  the  pen  of  '  my  Lord  Byron.'  "  —  Preface  to  American  Bards 
(a  satire)  by  G.  H.  Worth,  1819.  The  place  of  publication  is  not  given,  but  as  a  contem- 
porary newspaper  critic  of  Boston  advised  the  author  to  "  keep  his  poetry  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Delaware"  we  may  infer  it  was  old  Philadelphia.  In  England  the  only  poem  of 
merit  ever  fathered  on  Byron  was  Wolfe's  "  Sir  Charles  Moore." 

8  e.  g.    Sardtmapa/i/s,  Dec.  22, 1822. 

4  But  for  March,  1822.  parallel  passages  from  Don  Juan,  the  shipwreck  (ii.,  27ff),  and 
from  its  source  Shipwrecks  and  Disasters  at  Sea  had  been  given  in  full  to  indict  Byron  of 
plagiarism. 

5  i.  14. 

8  The  American  Monthly  Magazine  and  Review  i.,  442  (New  York,  Oct.,  1817),  dis- 
cussing The  Lament  of  Tasso,  makes  use  of  such  terms  as  gross,  despicable,  base,  heinous, 
condemns  it  as  worthless  and  —  prints  it  in  full,  cf.  Cairns,  p.  16.  (Cairns  observes  that  this 
magazine  was  anti-English,  and  that  the  tone  of  American  criticism  toward  Byron  was  de- 
termined largely  by  the  editor's  attitude  toward  England  and  English  writers.)  A  maga- 
zine for  ladies,  The  Literary  Cabinet  iv.,  25,  (New  York,  1821),  in  reviewing  Marino 
Fa/iero,  calls  Byron  "  that  great  poet  whose  writings  have  given  such  a  high  character  to 
the  genius  of  the  age,"  this,  too,  after  Don  Juan  had  been  so  long  shocking  the  ladies. 


The  Beginnings.  25 

elusion,  like  Southey,  "the  most  dreadful  but  yet  una- 
vailing torments  of  his  death-bed."  But  in  1825  the 
editor  rinds  space  for  a  letter  defending  Byron's  character, 
urging  us  to  be  grateful  for  "  his  frequent  and  eloquent 
reflections  on  America,"1  and  other  notices  were  not  al- 
ways so  harsh.2  The  North  American  Reviezv  3  thought 
Childe  Harold  and  Don  Juan  "  masterpieces  respectively 
in  the  serious  and  comic  order." 

Excerpts  from  Byron  filled  the  literary  corners  of  the 
newspapers  for  a  generation.  Bits  of  Childe  Harold  fol- 
low directly  in  the  year  of  its  publication  ;  the  same  holds 
for  his  other  poems,  though  much  less  for  the  dramas. 
The  minor  poems  were  very  popular,  even  those  now  little 
read ;  4  but  one  wonders  that  so  much  is  what  time  has 
since  proved  his  best.  Noticeable,  however,  are  the  in- 
frequent excerpts  from  Don  Juan;  they  are,  generally, 
strictly  poetical, 5  or  such  as  contain  friendly  references 
to  America  and  Washington. 

Though  contemporary  poets  were  often  extensively  crit- 
icised and  quoted,  Byron's  name  is  by  far  the  most 
ubiquitous  in  all  the  newspapers  and  magazines  exam- 
ined, and  it  maybe  assumed  that  the  points  of  view  varied, 
much  as  in  England,  and  were  often  subservient  to  Eng- 
land. 

A  curious  side-light  on  Byron's  early  popularity  is  cast 
by  the  booksellers'  announcements.  One  instance  must 
suffice.     The  Spy,  a  weekly  of  the  then  provincial  town 

le.g.  Age  of  Bronze,  v.  and  vii.  ;  "Ode  to  Venice;"  Childe  Harold  iv.,  96; 
"Ode  to  Napoleon." 

2  Cf.  The  Western  Review  (Lexington,  Kentucky),  vol.  ii.,  6,  1820  ;  and  the  Cincin- 
nati Literary  Gazette  for  1825. 

3  Byron's  Poems,  A.  C  Everett,  vol.  xx.,  p.  1-47. 

4  As  the  "Stanzas  to  Cadiz,"  the  epitaph  on  his  Newfoundland  dog  and  the  epigram 
on  the  sixth  anniversary  of  his  wedding.  Cf.  the  uncollected  verses  of  Kipling  that  were 
so  numerous  in  the  year  of  fame  '98. 

3  As  "An  infant  when  it  gazes  on  the  light,"    "  'T  is  Sweet,"  and  "Ave  Maria." 


26  Bvron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

of  Worcester,  Mass.,  carried  the  advertisements  of  one 
George  A.  Trumbull.  In  1812  he  caused  to  be  announced 
"jRokeby,  by  Walter  Scott,  $1.00;"  "  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage  and  Other  Poems,  by  Lord  Byron,  75c.  ;  " 
"The  Corsair,  from  the  fifth  London  Edition,"  is  an- 
nounced in  large  type  as  a  specialty  in  the  issue  of  July 
20,  1814;  others  follow  in  due  season.  All  were,  of 
course,  American  reprints.  This  Trumbull  had  also  for 
sale  "  Bottles  of  Volatile  Aromatick  and  Head  Ache  Snuff, 
accompanied  by  Dr.  Waterhouse's  certificate."  Such  were 
our  venders  of  poetry  and  culture. 

To  leave  the  critic  with  his  pen,  the  editor  with  his 
shears,  and  the  bookseller  writh  his  bottles,  the  public's 
views  and  feelings  may  be  guessed  at  from  the  many 
poetical  addresses  to  his  Lordship,  and  from  the  ever 
swelling  flood  of  Byronic  verse.     As  to  the  former. 

In  the  JVczu  England  Palladium  (Boston)  for  October 
6,  1815,  one  discovers  "Lines  suggested  by  the  closing 
stanzas  of  Byron's  Childe  Harold."  Byron  is  addressed 
as  "  sweetest  bard,"  "latest  of  bards,"  and  praised  for  his 
singing  of  Greece  and  Athens.  Most  to  the  purpose,  how- 
ever, is  this  :  — 

"  For  to  weep  with  thy  grief,  and  to  smile  with  thy  joy  — 
To  follow  thy  thoughts  thro  the  mind's  darkest  storm, 
Bespeaks  not  a  spirit  of  earthly  alloy, 
But  a  soul  that  was  cast  in  a  heavenly  form." 

Thus  self-conscious  versifiasters  laid  the  flattering  unction 
to  their  souls,  and  thus  the  pose,  the  fad,  began.     The 
Worcester  Spy  for  July  27,  1814,  contains  an  "  Epistle  to 
Lord  Byron,"  nearly  a  column  long.     It  opens  :  — 

"  Hail  moody  chief  of  pirate  song  ;  " 


The  Beginnings.  27 

And  then  reviews  his  career  :  — 

"  We  saw  when  thou  thy  vengeance  hurled 
On  Jeffrey  and  his  lawless  clan 
Which  changed  the  '  minor  '  *  to  the  '  man ' "  — 


Lo, 


"Thine  is  the  path  where  danger  lurks 
Mongst  ruthless  Giaours  and  pagan  Turks 

****** 
Thou,  like  thy  Corsair,2  bold  and  free, 
Delight'st  the  thunder  cliffs  to  ride  "  — 

yet  it  laments  that  his  heroes  are 

"  such  a  savage  band 
With  each  a  war  knife  in  his  hand  "  — 

And  alas  ! 

"the  fair  thy  tales  delight3 
And  beg  your  Lordship  still  to  write." 

It  concludes  admonishingly  :  — 

"  O  Byron,  let  not  love  of  fame 
Extinguish  virtue's  brighter  flame ; 
Who  thus  can  lead  our  minds  away 
Should  ne'er  to  doubtful  paths  betray, 
But  still  unchanging  keep  in  view 
Their  pleasure  and  their  safety  too." 

The  author  of  this  Horatian  precept  of  utile  dulci  seems 
to  have  had  a  presentiment  of  Don  Juan.  The  Portfolio 
for  December,  1817,  yields  another  "Epistle  to  Lord 
Byron ;  "  it  attacks  him  in  two  columns  of  fine  print  for 
making  poetry  and  capital  out  of  his  woes,  just  as 

"  the  mendicant  protrudes  to  sight 
His  mangled  limbs  our  pity  to  excite." 

1  A  recondite  allusion  to  the  title  page  of  the  Hours  of  Idleness  and  to  the  com- 
ments thereon  in  the  Edinburgh  Review. 

2  The  Corsair  had  just  been  put  on  sale  in  Worcester. 

3  Cf.  "Every  puling  miss  thy  story  greets,"  "Address"  in  the  Portfolio,  quoted 
below. 


28  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

and  for  cynicism  and  libertinism.  It,  too,  concludes  ad- 
monishingly,  or  rather  beseechingly  :  — 

"Misguided  spirit!  yet  in  mercy  spare, 
And  if  thy  heart  be  human,  O  forbear ! " 

Ityron's  melancholy  and  perversity  were  considered  dis- 
tinguishing traits.1  No  English  poet  received  so  many 
epistles  from  across  the  sea,  except,  possibly,  Mrs.  Felicia 
Hemans,  who  came  nearest  to  rivaling  his  Lordship  in 
popularity,  judging  by  the  press,  from  about  the  year 
1826. 2  The  odes  and  elegies  called  forth  by  his  death 
will  be  mentioned  below. 

The  imitations  were  sometimes  serious  parodies,  as  one 
in  the  Palladium,  July  9,  1816,  in  answer  to  "the  ques- 
tionable spirit  which  pervades  the  too  popular  '  Fare  Thee 
Well,'"  where  Lady  Byron  sobs  :  — 

"Now  each  tie  of  love  is  broken"  — 

an  American  defence  which  culminated  later  in  Mrs. 
Stowe;3  or  sometimes  burlesques,  as  one  in  the  Galaxy, 
January  26,  1826  — 

"There  was  a  sound  of  rioting  by  night"  — 

where  some  local  Boston  escapade  supplants  Waterloo. 
But  they  were  oftener  "in  the  manner  of  Lord  Byron," 
as  the  subtitles  occasionally  read.  Lyrics  predominate, 
and  all,  save  those  to  which  Moore  or  Campbell  are  also 

1  Cf.  "  Black  wormwood  bitters  Lord  Byron  should  bear,"  in  the  "Croaker"  Poems, 
(1819). 

-  The  first  American  Edition  of  Mrs.  Hemans  was  prepared  by  Andrews  Norton, 
and  published  in  1826. 

3  In  1869,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  :  there  had  been  in  the  same  magazine  eight  years 
before  a  sensible  defense  of  Lady  Byron  by  Harriet  Martineau. 


f  w 


The  Beginnings.  29 

party,  ring  the  changes  on  love  and  despair.  Indeed, 
about  1S15,  newspaper  verse  grows  decidedly  more  melan- 
choly :  verses  "On  a  Chilling  Thought"  after  Byron's 
"  To  Inez,"  on  "  Grief"  in  Spenserians,  on  "  The  Scenes 
of  my  Youth  "by  "  Philander  "  (where  we  have  Byron  and 
the  Delia  Cruscans)  from  the  Palladium  for  1815  show  a 
marked  contrast  to  the  eighteenth  century  verse  that  still 
sometimes  accompanies  them.  The  new  verse  makes, 
too,  more  of  an  attempt  at  directness  and  passion,  though 
universally  ridiculous  :  — 

"  And  is  the  love  of  one  whole  year 
So  sudden  and  forever  gone  — 
O  then  farewell  to  me  still  dear, 
Still  dear  to  me  art  thou  alone." 

In   1829,  in  the  Essex  County  Gazette,   one  may  read 
of  the 

"  Girl  of  the  dark  and  kindling  eye ! 

*        *        *        *        *        * " 

who  suggests 

"  The  funeral  touches  of  decay," 

which  suggest,  in  turn 

"  The  pure  and  blessed  light  of  heaven." 

The  piece  is  signed  J.  G.  W.,  and  is  one  of  many,  as  yet 
uncollected,1  Byronic  lyrics  of  the  Quaker  Poet.  Whit- 
tier's  early  verses  were  frequently  copied  in  other  papers. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  Byronic  American 
bards,  but  Byronism  was,  as  his  latest  biographer2  has 
said,  "completely  foreign  to  the  quietism  of  his  early 
training  and  of  his  later  feelings,"  and  seems  to  have  been 
due  "  to  the  disturbing  stimulus  of  the  new  and  larger  world 

1  But  see  Cheever's  Commonplace  Book  of  American  Poetry. 

2  George  R.  Carpenter,  in  American  Men  of  Letters  Series,  Boston,  1903. 


30  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

to  which  he  was  yet  imperfectly  adjusted."    It  forms  but  ; 
very  minor  phase  of  Whittier's  literary  history.1 

The  Byronic  weariness  of  life  was  widely  cultivated  ;  i 
bespoke,  presumably,  even  more  than  love's  delirium  "j 
spirit  not  of  earthly  alloy,"  it  had  an  air  of  something  dee] 
about  it,  something,  too,  that  set  the  author  apart  fron 
his  happy-go-lucky  fellows.  So  sings  a  youth  for  th< 
Charleston  Courier,  in  1825  :  — 

"At  nineteen,  life  began  to  pall  — 
With  love  and  beauty  I  had  done, 
Ambition,  too,  began  to  fall 

From  its  high  hopes  of  twenty-one." 

Byron  had  said  in  the  Hours  of  Idleness :  — 


"  Weary  of  love,  of  life,  devoured  with  spleen 
I  rest  a  perfect  Timon,  not  nineteen." 

The  reader  shall  be  troubled  further  with  but  the  one  fol 
lowing  stanza ;    the  remaining  he  can  find  by  turning  t< 

1  For  his  other  early  Byronic  verse,  cf.  Mogg  Mcgone  (commenced  1830).  Whittie 
said  later,  "  It  suggests  the  idea  of  a  big  Indian  in  his  war-paint  strutting  about  in  Sir  \Valt< 
Scott's  plaid."    It  suggests  just  as  surely  the  Byronic  hero  and  melodrama  and  rhetoric,  e.g 

"  He  starts  —  there  's  a  rustle  among  the  leaves  : 
Another  —  the  click  of  his  gun  is  heard  ! 
A  footstep,  —  is  it  the  step  of  Cleaves, 
With  Indian  blood  on  his  English  sword?  " 
or  :  — 

"And  how,  upon  that  nameless  woe, 
Quick  as  the  pulse  can  come  and  go, 
While  shakes  the  unsteadfast  knee,  and  yet 
The  bosom  heaves  — the  eye  is  wet  — 
Has  thy  dark  spirit  power  to  stay 
The  heart's  wild  current  on  its  way?  " 

In  the  appendix  to  the  Cambridge  Edition  are  some  Spenserians  on  "  Benevolence. 
Byronic  in  laudation  of  freedom  and  in  ottava  rima  is  "  To  a  Poetical  Trio  in  the  city  c 
Gotham  "  (1832),  mingling  jest  and  earnest ;  the  latter  dominates,  it  being  Whittier.  Q 
Carpenter's  Life,  p.  t*4ff . 


The  Beginnings.  31 

the  New  England  Palladium  for  Tuesday,  December  2, 
1821  :  — 

"Nay  sigh  not  —  'tis  useless  —  0  I  could  sigh  too 
If  I  knew  any  service  that  sighing  might  do. 
Nay  sigh  not — 'tis  better  to  smile  if  we  may 
And  thus  of  our  pilgrimage  cheat  the  long  day. 
We  must  on,  be  our  path  over  flower  or  thorn, 
Do  thunder  clouds  gloom  it,  or  sunbeams  adorn, 
We  must  on  —  and  it  leads  us  all  to  one  spot 
Where  our  pleasures,  our  sorrows  alike  are  forgot." 

The  Hebrew  Melodies  set  country  parsons  early  at  work 
on  '■'■The  Destruction  of  Sodom"  *lJaeV  and  the  like. 

The  tales  were  imitated  in  such  papers  as  gave  a  column 
or  two  to  the  local  poets.  A  youth  in  the  Vermont  Mes- 
senger for  1822  depicted  in  two  and  one-half  columns  "  The 
Pirate"  arousing  our  curiosity  and  fear  quite  at  the  begin- 
ning with 

"Why  is  that  form  of  secret  woe?"  — 

Byron  had  penetrated  to  the  Green  Mountains.  The 
Galaxy  for  1837  has  two  columns  of  octosyllabic  and  pen- 
tameter couplets  on  "The  Pirate  Barque"  — 

"A  tale  of  horror  and  despair"  — 

to  quote  the  concluding  line.  For  the  same  year  it  prints 
also  "  The  Idiot  Son  "  in  the  style  of  Afazeffia,  and  "  The 
Lovers  of  Scio "  in  that  of  The  Corsair  with  Byronic 
names,  "  Leila  "  and  "  Haja."  It  is  only  by  going  beyond 
the  beginnings  that  the  tales  meet  us  very  frequently  in 
the  papers.     The  lyrics  on  the  other  hand  decline. 

Childe  Harold  appears  in  the  Galaxy  for  1820  in  five 
Spenserian  stanzas,  labelled  "  Childe  Harold  in  Boeotia," 
with  echoes  of  the  second  canto  ;  The  Rev.  T.  H.  Clinch 
has  several  on  "  Music  "  in  echo  of  the  fourth.  Don  Juan 
is  reflected  curiously  in    the    Galaxy  for    1826  (and  fre- 


32  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

quently  elsewhere)  as  a  "  Carriers'  Address,"  containing 
allusions  to  contemporary  events.  But  neither  of  these 
longer  poems  was  so  often  imitated  in  the  papers. 

Byronic  echoes  are  audible  in  the  many  verses  on 
Modern  Greece,  in  whose  struggle  America  is  known  to 
have  taken  a  lively  interest,  in  odes  to  Napoleon,  in  those 
verses,  of  course,  addressed  to  Byron,  and  in  the  odes  to 
Lafayette  in  1824,  who  for  a  few  weeks  seems  to  have 
put  all  other  themes  at  a  discount. 

Then  Lord  Byron  died  at  Missolonghi.  In  England  it 
was  as  if  the  sun  had  gone  out,  and  Carlyle  wrung  his 
hands,  and  the  boy  Tennyson  walked  into  the  yard  to 
trace  with  a  stick  in  the  sand,  "  Byron  is  dead."  The 
English  and  Continental  press  made  him  the  subiect  of 
the  hour,  and  published  countless  worthless  monodies  in 
his  honor.  Equally  great  was  the  shock  in  America, 
and  equally  countless  and  more  worthless  the  monodies. 
Though  some  papers,  devoted  exclusively  to  news,  merely 
mention  him  under  the  nonpareil  column  of  "  Latest  from 
Europe,"1  and  many  others  content  themselves  with  long 
transcerpts  of  English  critiques  and  verses,2  an  equal  num- 
ber contain  much  and  original  matter.  One  has  but  to 
turn  to  our  files  for  1832  or  1850,  the  years  of  Scott's  and 
of  Wordsworth's  passing,  to  see  how  very  unusual  was 
this  homage  of  attention  to  a  great  English  man  of  letters. 
The  North  American  Review  begins  a  fifty-page  review  3 

1  e.  g.  "  By  the  ship  Euphrates  at  N.Y.,  from  Liverpool,  papers  to  May  25  have  been 
received     .....    Lord  Byron  died  at  Missolonghi,  April  19,  of  a  rheumatic  fever, 

.  .  [a  few  biographical  facts  here]  .  .  His  last  thoughts  were  of  his  wife,  child  and 
sister.  His  Lordship  was  in  his  37th  year  and  is  succeeded  in  his  title  by  Capt.  Byron  of 
the  navy." 

2  Cf.  The  Galaxy,  July  2,  1824:  —  "The  English  papers  contain  a  great  number  of 
notices  of  this  nobleman's  life,  character  and  works,  from  which  we  have  extracted  the  fol- 
lowing ;  "  here  follows  a  column  of  biography  and  criticism. 

3  By  A.  C  Everett.  The  North  American  Review  has  in  succeeding  volumes  many 
articles  on  Byron,  cf.  Index  to  North  American  Review  1815-1877  by  William  Cushing, 
Cambridge,  1878.  The  earlier  volumes  (vol.  i.,  1815,)  often  reprinted  passages  of  his 
poetry.     Cf.  esp.  vol.  iv.,  3G9-377,  selections  from  Childe  Harold,  iii. 


The  Beginnings.  33 

of  Lord  Byron's  poems:  —  "The  death  of  Lord  Byron, 
without  depressing  the  price  of  stocks  or  affecting  the  elec- 
tion of  President,  has  produced  a  deep  and  general  feeling 
of  regret  throughout  the  country."  Most  articles  and  notices, 
however,  refer  more  to  his  life,  especially  in  the  Greek  war, 
than  to  his  poetry.  That  he  was  a  nobleman,  an  Anglo- 
Greek  Washington  and  a  poet  to  boot,  seem  to  have  been 
for  the  moment  uppermost  in  the  public  mind.  The 
funeral  criticism  on  his  poetry,  though  often  extravagant 
either  in  blame  or  in  praise,  sometimes  surprises  us  by  its 
soundness.  "  In  depth  of  thought,  in  power,  in  brilliancy 
and  felicity  of  style,  in  his  almost  miraculous  facility  of 

production,  he  stood  without  a  rival  in  our  day 

He  has  two  defects,  extravagance   of    thought   and    lan- 
guage,  and  want  of  care  and  finish  in  the  versification. 
Childe  Harold  is  the  poem  on  which  his  fame 
will    ultimately    rest      ....      the    moral    defects    of 

Bepfo  and  Don  Juan  are  to  be  regretted The 

general  effect  of  his  writings  is  immoral,"  are  character- 
istic bits  from  Everett's  review. 

Of  home-made  monodies  let  the  following  selections 
suffice.  In  the  Galaxy,  July  16,  1824,  Byron  is  praised 
for  his  poetry,  reference  being  all  to  the  third  canto  of 
Childe  Harold  as  "ye  mountains  of  Jura "  and  "thou, 
Lake  Leman  "  —  but  what  touched  the  writer  was  that 


"Though  far  from  his  home  and  his  country  he  died, 
Yet  the  loud  voice  of  freedom  has  hallowed  his  tomb;" 


it  concludes  :  — 


"He  has  left  a  bright  name  that  no  refluent  tide 
Can  sweep  from  the  earth  till  the  day  of  its  doom. 


34  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

The  same  paper  for  August  6,  1824,  prints  "  An  Ode  to 
Lord  Byron,"  which  is  one  long  painful  column  of  stan- 
zas supposed  to  be  modelled  on  those  of  the  "  Ode  to 
Napoleon,"  all  in  praise  and  sorrow.  It  has  for  February 
26,  1826,  another  by  the  Rev.  C.  C.  Colton,  also  after 
the  "Ode  to  Napoleon."  He  "prizes,"  "  mourns  "  and 
"blames"  the  poet,  and  shows  an  astonishing  familiarity 
with  his  work,  a  familiarity  which  seems  to  have  been 
but  too  characteristic  of  those  who  were  trying  to  climb 
Mount  Parnassus  with  one  foot  and  Mount  Zion  with  the 
other.1 

If  one  institute  for  comparison's  sake  a  brief  examination 
of  the  newspapers  from  1824  down  to  i860,  one  will  find 
Byron  gradually  losing  ground.  To  judge  from  the 
Boston  Recorder  and  a  few  others  for  1845-6-7,  he  has 
fallen  off  very  much  —  while  excerpts  and  imitations  of 
Felicia  Hemans,  pious  temperance  lyrics  from  the  work- 
shop of  the  once  honored  Rev.  W.  B.  Tappan,  and  senti- 
mental musings  of  Mrs.  Sigourney,  with  anti-slavery 
verse  signed  J.  G.  W.,  are  numerous.  About  the  same 
period  Thackeray's  "  Ballad  of  Bouillabaisse,"  Browning's 
"  How  they  Brought  the  Good  News,"  parodies  of  Hia- 
watha, here  and  there  a  bit  from  Tennyson,  all  in  the 
Boston  Post,  suggest,  too,  the  passing  of  Mrs.  He- 
mans. 


1  Caims  observes,  "The  remarks  on  his  death  from  thepulpitare  an  interesting  study. 
He  was  reviled  as  seducer  of  women,  and  blasphemer  against  the  Most  High  ;  his  end  was 
dwelt  on  with  pity  and  relish,  while  good  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  generously  lamented  that 
Byron  had  not  come  under  his  own  particular  care  and  thereby  received  peace  and  the  hope 
of  salvation.  For  a  generation  thereafter  Byron  figured  prominently  in  clerical  "  Lectures 
to  Young  Men,"  as  atheist,  libertine  and  inebriate.  Undoubtedly  the  pulpit  did  only  less 
than  the  press  to  spread  information  about  Byron  and  to  stimulate  the  reading  of  his  poetry. 
Cf.  "One  reason,  beyond  question,  which  contributed  to  make  the  works  of  Lord  Byron  so 
popular,  was  the  overcharged  denunciations  which  were  at  first  rung  against  them."  — 
Western  Monthly  Review,  Cincinnati,  vol.  iii,  p.  648.  L829. 

The  more  dignified  journals  of  the  religious  press  contained  but  brief  obituary  notices. 


The  Beginnings.  35 

Of  magazine  articles  it  may  be  mentioned  that  Shelley,1 
Wordsworth2  and  Keats,3  seem  to  have  claimed  more  and 
more  attention.  Of  magazine  poetry  little  has  been  said, 
since  the  bulk  of  it  was  republished  in  book  form,  and 
must  now  be  looked  to ;  for  the  more  ambitious  were  not 
content  with  the  Poet's  Corner. 

1  Shelley's  name  appears  early,  linked  with  Byron's,  as  anathema.  Little  seems  to 
have  been  known  of  his  poetry  before  the  Philadelphia  reprint  of  Galignani's  Edition  of 
Keats,  Shelley  and  Coleridge,  in  one  large  volume.  See  The  Poe-Chivers  Papers  by 
Prof.  Woodberry  in  the    Century,  1902-3. 

-  Wordsworth  had  had  from  the  beginning,  besides  Bryant,  '"supporters  two  or  three." 
Longfellow  noted  in  the  article  before  quoted  "how  inevitably  those  who  have  imitated 
him  have  fallen  into  his  tedious  mannerisms."  See  "The  Lynn  Bard,"  Alonzo  Lewis 
{Poems,  Boston,  1831). 

-;  The  New  York  Mirror  for  Aug.  22,  1829,  quoting  from  the  Boston  Mercury  a  short 
article  on  Keats,  remarks,  "As  yet  only  a  small  portion  of  the  public  is  acquainted  with 
his  writings." 


CHAPTER   III. 

BYRON'S  LITERARY  INFLUENCE,   1815-1830. 

IT  HAS  been  already  remarked  that  Byron's  influence 
on  America's  greater  poets  has  never  been  of  moment ; 
Whittier,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Lowell,  Emerson,  Whit- 
man, are  in  one  way  or  another,  indeed,  distinctly  un- 
byronic.1  Here  literary  influences  are  often  obviously 
Continental  or  not  contemporary.  Longfellow  brought  us 
the  romance  and  meters  from  the  North  and  South  of 
Europe  ;  Lowell  was  a  combination  of  shrewd  Yankee, 
classical  scholar,  critic,  statesman  and  professor,  in  whose 
poetry  one  may  sometimes  trace  Keats  ; 2  Emerson's  poetry 
is  in  thought  reminiscent  of  post-Kantian  philosophy,  in 
style  often  of  the  later  Elizabethans ;  Holmes  had  some- 
what of  the  French  spirit,  partially  temperamental,  par- 
tially developed  or  acquired  during  his  early  years  of 
study  in  Paris :  he  also  combined  the  English  literary 
traditions  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  his  wit,  didacticism, 
urbanity  and  balanced  heroics  ;  Whittier  in  manhood  spoke 
his  own  language,  though,  as  reformer,  he  had  the  invec- 
tive and  indignation  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  and,  as  artist, 
he  sometimes  took  hints  from  Byrant,  Longfellow,  and 
later  even  from  Browning  and  Tennyson  ;  Whitman's  ante- 
cedents are  still  in  doubt.  Poe  and  Bryant  will  be  men- 
tioned later. 

1  Whitman  had  even  more  of  egotism  than  Byron,  but  he  made  it  a  philosophic  prin- 
ciple :  "  What  I  shall  assume,  you  shall  assume"  {Leaves  of  Grass) ;  while  Byron  stood 
"among  them,  but  not  of  them"  —  the  very  reverse  attitude. 

2  Lowell's  early  poems  show  his  reading  in  Tennyson,  Shelley  and  Landor.  His  ode 
to  France  is  after  Coleridge. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence ',  1815-18JO.  37 

But  there  is  a  group  of  men,  often  not  without  ability, 
whose  verse,  once  widely  read  and  admired,  has  much  of 
Byron's  spirit  and  technique.  Though  imitators,  many  of 
them  by  a  slight  infusion  of  personality  and  imagination, 
and  by  relatively  skilful  handling  of  the  poems  imitated, 
may  still  command  some  respect,  and  are  still  not  altogether 
forgotten.  All  may  be  considered  as  belonging  to  Ameri- 
can Literature,  if  we  use  the  magnified  scale  adopted  by 
Professor  Trent.  These  it  seems  best  to  look  at  together, 
before  turning  to  the  huge  mass  of  absolutely  forgotten 
and  poetically  worthless  exploits  in  Byronic  poetastry,  from 
which,  however,  we  are  likely  to  gain  our  chief  knowl- 
edge of  the  kind,  the  extent  and  the  causes  of  Byronism 
in  America.  The  latter  may  be  treated  primarily  with 
reference  to  facts  and  principles  illustrated.  For  the 
former  a  chronological  presentation  seems  most  feasible. 

Names  may  be  grouped  either  side  of  the  year  1830. 
The  best  work  of  our  earlier  poets,  of  Halleck,  Drake,  Dana, 
Bryant,  was  then  done  ; *  the  later  poets  were  just  beginning 
to  be  heard.  Several  things  by  Longfellow  appeared  in 
Poems  Selected  from  the  United  States  Literary  Gazette, 
as  early  as  1826.  His  first  book,  albeit  an  elementary 
French  grammar,  bears  date  of  1830.  Attention  has 
already  been  called  to  Whittier's  early  newspaper  verse. 
In  1827,  '29  and  '31,  Poe  published  his  earlier  poems. 
Moreover,  1827,  '30,  '32  mark  the  years  of  Tennyson's 
first  volumes,  and  the  rise  of  a  new  poetry  in  England, 
which  was  soon  to  affect  America.  By  1830,  too,  our 
social  conditions  had  begun  to  approach  those  we  know 
to-day.     New  England  changed  from  an  agricultural  and 

1  Contemporaries  seem  to  have  felt  the  end  of  a  poetic  period  about  this  time.  The 
Ktiickerbocker  Magazine  for  November,  1S3S,  says  tragically:  "Our  poets  one  by  one 
have  passed  away.  Halleck,  Percival,  Bryant  and  Dana,  where  are  they?"  Note,  inci- 
dentally, that  Kettel's  three  volumes  of  American  verse  were  published  in  1829. 


38  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

sea-faring  to  an  industrial  people,  the  movement  West  was 
beginning,  and  the  hustling  American,  satirized  in  Martin 
( lat : :  Iczvit,  reached  a  useful  maturity.  Railroads  and 
telegraphs  followed.1  In  1830  we  had  but  eight  hundred 
and  thirty-two  newspapers,  in  number  not  double  that  of 
the  German-American  newspapers  to-day,  while  the  next 
decade  brought  the  rise  of  modern  journalism.  The  New 
York  Herald  was  founded  in  1835,  the  Tribune  in  1841, 
and  in  1850  there  were  two  thousand  five  hundred  and 
twenty-six  newspapers,  in  i860  four  thousand  and  fifty- 
one.2  The  systematic  effort  to  spread  the  good,  the  true 
and  the  beautiful,  as  witnessed,  respectively,  in  societies 
for  various  reforms,  in  library,  college  and  lecture  founda- 
tions and  learned  associations,  and  in  art  museums  and  acad- 
emies, comes  more  and  more  into  intelligent  and  zealous 
hands.  Before  1830  existed,  indeed,  the  Massachusetts 
Temperance  Society,  the  American  Tract,  Bible  and 
Peace  Societies,  the  Boston  Atheneum  had  been  founded 
in  1806,  the  American  Educational  Society  in  1815,  the 
Mercantile  Libraries  of  Boston  and  New  York  in  1820,  to  be 
followed  by  that  of  Philadelphia  in  1823,  and  the  National 
Academy  of  Design  in  1826 ;  but  the  anti-slavery  Society 
(1831)  and  Transcendentalism  (The  Dial,  1840-44),  such 
foundations  for  the  advancement  of  learning  and  the  dis- 
semination of  culture  as  the  Boston  Academy  of  Music 
(1833),  tne  Lowell  Lectures  (1839),  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitute (1846),  the  American  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Science  (1847),  the  Astor  and  the  Boston  Public 
Libraries  (both  1854),  and  the  Agassiz  Museum  at  Harvard 
(1859),  w^h  ^e  public  art  galleries  and  the  rise  of  church 
architecture3  belong  in  the  succeeding  period,  and  mark 

1  The  Baltimore  &  Ohio  R.R.  was  begun  in  1828  ;  The  Morse  telegraph,  1844. 

2  See  Hudson's  History  of  Journalism  and  Whitcomb's  Chronological  Outlines. 

3  Trinity  Church,  designed  by  Upjohn,  and  Grace  Church,  by  Renwick,  were  erected 
in  the  early  forties. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  iSij-iSjo.  39 

a  more  thorough-going,  more  independent  life  of  the  spirit. 
Our  long  apprenticeship  to  the  learning  and  art  of  other 
lands  was  drawing  to  a  close.1  Byronism  in  America, 
almost  always  in  its  best  estate  somewhat  shallow,  found 
its  disciples  more  and  more  exclusively  among  the  minor 
literati. 

1815-1830. 
Among  New  York  authors  in  the  early  days  was  Gulian 
C.Verplanck,  remembered  as  an  editor  of  Shakespere."  In 
18 19  he  published  The  State  Triumvirate,  a  Political  Tale, 
and  The  Epistles  of  Brevet  Major,  Pindar  Puff.  The 
Talc  is  in  octosyllabics,  The  Epistles  are  in  heroics,  and 
the  critical  apparatus  is  after Martiniis  Scriblerus.  Thus, 
it  is  interesting  as  being  transitional.  The  new  literature  is 
criticised  in  the  form  of  the  old.    Prudence  is  called  upon  to 

"  rescue  from  poetic  fever 

****** 

The  madd  ning  bard  that  voice  defies 
Or  rends,  like  Byron,  all  the  ties 
That  Faith  or  Reason  form  " — 

but  in  an  "Appendix"  we  are  furnished  with  a  bogus  ex- 
tract of  nine  stanzas  from  the  fourth  canto  of  Don  Juan, 
which  in  reality  had  not  yet  appeared.  It  deals  with  New 
York  politics  and  society. 

But  Fitz-Green  Halleck  is  a  more  important  name.  In 
this  same  year,  when  he  and  Drake  were  sending  their 
"Croaker"  poems  to  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  was 
printed  the  first  edition  of  Fanny.  Few  nowadays  read 
Fanny,  but  any  one  will  recall  Lowell's  characterization, 

"  a  pseudo  Don  Juan 
With  the  wickedness  out  that  gave  salt  to  the  true  one."8 

But  this   is   a  little   misleading,   as    Beppo  furnished  the 

1  Emerson,   The  American  Scholar,  1837. 

2  He  is  generally  called  the  first  American  editor,  but  this  honor  belongs  to  Dennie. 
'  The  Fables  for  Critics,  1848. 


40  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

original  impulse.1     "  It  was  so  popular  that  the  publisher 

gave  him  $500.00  to  add  fifty  stanzas  to  the  new  edition  "2 

(1821).     A  social  satire  on  a  flashy  New  Yorker  and  his 

fashionable    daughter,    with    digressions    innumerable    on 

Greece,  European  politics,  bad  literature  and  bad  statues, 

and  civic  life 

"  from  Clinton  down  to  the  bill-sticker 
Of  a  ward-meeting  '* — 

with  quizzical  remarks  on  a  lady's  age,  with  whimsical 
rhymes  and  clever  anti-climax,  and  quite  gentlemanly 
ease,  it  is  the  first  and  the  best  of  the  sort  in  America. 
For  the  crim-cons  of  Don  Juan  is  substituted  a  financial  fail- 
ure, while  the  wickedness  is  suggested  by  occasional  stan- 
zas consisting  simply  of  asterisks.3  Bits  of  serious  poetry 
are  interspersed,  as  the  stanzas  on  Weehawken,4  with  By- 
ronic  echoes  of  "forest  solitudes"  and  "  crags,"  and  of 

"  the  moan 
Of  wearied  ocean  when  the  storm  is  gone." 

But  the  songs  recall  Moore.  Let  exxi  serve  as  a  speci- 
men.    The  ottava  rima  has  been  docked  to  six  lines  :  — 

"  In  all  the  modern  languages  she  was 
Exceedingly  well  versed,  and  had  devoted 
To  their  attainment,  far  more  time  than  has 
By  the  best  teachers  lately  been  allotted: 
For  she  had  taken  lessons,  twice  a  week 
For  a  full  month  in  each,  and  she  could  speak, 

French  and  Italian,*'5  etc. 

1  Frederick  S.  Cossens,  in  A  Memorial  of  Fitz-Green  Halleck  (1868)  states  :  "  Halleck 
told  me  that  Fanny  was  published  before  Don  Juan  had  crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  that 
he  had  adopted  the  versilkation  of  Beppo.  one  of  Byron's  minor  poems."  General  J.  G. 
Wilson,  Halleck's  friend  and  biographer,  made  a  similar  statement  to  the  present 
writer.    But  see  infra. 

2  The  New  York  Tribune,  May  15,  1877. 

3  Some  older  expurgations  from  Don  Juan  strike  one  as  peculiar.  Halleck's  edition 
prints  the  worst  things  in  full,  but  eliminates,  e.g..  i.  131,  on  the  pox,  and  xi,  57  and 
58.  which  contain  mere  jesting  on  the  Rev.  Rowley  Powley  and  Pegasus'  "psalmodic 
amble." 

4  Stanzas  94-99. 

5  This  reminds  one  very  much  of  the  description  of  the  Lady  Inez,  Don  Juan,  i,  13  and 
14,  but  it  is  in  the  earlier(1819)edition.  Another  passage  suggests  the  favorite  "  'T  is  sweet." 
These  can  hardly  be  coincidences  ;  Halleck's  memory  may  have  failed  him  and  Don  Juan 
may  have  come  into  his  hands  during  the  progress  of  the  poem,  though,  as  he  said,  Beppo 
set  him  at  it.     Fanny  was  published  inDecember. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  /8ij-iSjo.  41 

Fanny  is,  however,  not  written  in  the  tone  of  Don  Juan. 
"  Halleck  was  never  cynical  in  his  satire,  and  Byron  always 
was,"  said  Bryant;1  and  Bayard  Taylor2  called  him  "The 
brave,  bright  and  beautiful  growth  of  a  healthy  masculine 
race,"  adding  "The  cries  and  protests,  the  utterance  of 
'  world-pain,'  with  which  so  many  of  his  contemporaries  in 
Europe  filled  the  world,  awoke  no  echo  in  his  sound  and 
sturdy  nature." 

In  certain  Spenserians  on  "  Wyoming  "  both  Campbell 
and  Byron  are  traceable  in  stanza  and  phraseology,  while 
the  subject  itself  had  been  sung  by  Campbell,  to  whose 
poem  thankful  reference  was  then  frequent  in  America. 
"Marco  Bozzaris  "  reminds  one  of  Byron  by  enthusiasm 
for  Greek  freedom,  and  of  Campbell  in  martial  vigor,  while 
its  octosyllabics  are  echoes  of  Scott.  There  is  Byron  in 
eleven  ottava  rimas  on  "  Connecticut."  Here,  too,  as  also 
in  Alnwick  Castle,  grave  and  gay  are  whimsically  mixed, 
after  Byron's  later  manner.  In  "The  Recorder"  is  a 
joke  direct  out  of  The  Vision  of  Judgment : 3  — 

"  I  take  the  liberty  of  asking 
Permission,  Sir,  to  write  your  life 
With  all  its  scenes  of  calm  and  strife, 

******* 

A  poem  in  a  quarto  volume." 

The  New  York  Tribune  once  observed,4  "  Halleck  was 
of  the  school  of  Scott,  Campbell  and  Moore,  and  its  only 
American  representative  ;  "  Byron's  name  must  have  been 
implied,  or  its  omission  was  a  curious  oversight.  Yet  we 
feel  original  force  in  Halleck,  differing  rather  in  degree 

1  In  Some  Notice  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Fitz-Green  Halleck,  read  before  the 
New  York  Historical  Society,  1869. 

-  In  an  Address  for  the  formal  dedication  of  the  Halleck  monument  at  Guilford, 
Conn.,  July  8,  1869,  printed  by  Amermann,  Wilson,  N.Y.,  1877. 

'■''  Stanza  99. 

4  In  the  article  of  May  15,  1877. 


42  Byron  and  Byron  ism  in  America. 

tli an  in  kind  from  Byron's  force,  which  raises  him  above 
mere  imitators.  The  critic1  who  claimed  for  him  the  en- 
ergy "to  seize  the  passing  moment,  the  present  scene,  the 
grand  event,  and  make  them  subservient  to  use,"  hit  unwit- 
tingly on  Matthew  Arnold's  analysis  of  Byron's  peculiar 
genius.2  Halleck  in  remarking  he  felt  that  he  had  "lost 
on  Byron's  death  a  brother,"  and  in  long  enthusiastic  labors 
at  editing  the  first  worthy  edition  of  his  poetry  and  prose, 
may  have  been  prompted  by  an  intuition  of  kinship.  Con- 
temporaries observed  it,3  at  least,  and  one  declared  Halleck 
to  be  "  what  Byron  might  have  been  had  he  been  born  a 
Connecticut  Yankee,"4  with  an  implication  of  a  certain  in- 
tellectual strength  and  shrewdness  common  to  both.  Still 
it  will  not  do  to  call  Halleck  "  the  American  Byron." 

His  friend  Joseph  Rodman  Drake  (i  795-1820)  left 
little  beside  The  Cul-prit  Fay  and  "The  American  Flag." 
Some  Spenserians  lamenting  the  dearth  of  American  sing- 
ers on  American  subjects,  and  advising  Halleck  as  a  patri- 
otic exercise, 

"  To  climb  the  palisado's  lofty  brow," 

are  in  the  rhetorical  vein  of  the  stanzas  on  Greece  in 
Childe  Harold.  A  fragment,  "Leon,"  in  heroics,  was 
inspired  by  The  Corsair. 

William  Cullen  Bryant  used  to  be  called  "the  American 
Wordsworth  "  until  it  was  protested  that  this 

"  was  endangering  the  life  of  your  client 
By  attempting  to  stretch  him  up  into  a  giant." 

We  have  Bryant's  own  testimony  on  the   effect  first  ac- 

1  William  Allen  Butler,  in  his  Central  Park  Address,  May  15,  1877,  on  the  unveiling 
of  Halleck's  statue. 

-  In  the  preface  to  Selections  from  Byron. 

3  "  We  mark  in  Halleck  the  Byronic  spirit  and  fire  of  song."  American  Poets  and 
their  Critics  in  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  vol.  iii,  June,  1834. 

4  An  anonymous  American  (N.P.  Willis?)  writing  on  American  Literature  in  the 
London  Atkenaum,  1835. 


Byron 's  Literary  Influence,  1815-1830.  43 

quaintance  with  the  Lyrical  Ballads1  made  upon  him. 
But  in  his  historical  poem,  "The  Ages,"  he  is  as  much 
influenced  by  Byron.  "The  Ages"  (1821),  in  thirty-five 
Spenserians,  is  Bryant's  longest  poem.  It  is  a  review 
writ  large  of  the  progress  of  man.  The  roll  of  the  verses 
suggests  the  first  two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold,  as  also  the 
thought  and  subject  matter  :  — 

"  Virtue  cannot  dwell  with  slaves,  nor  reign 
O'er  those  who  cower  to  take  the  tyrant's  yoke.'1 

He  describes  where 

"  the  abbey  lay 
Sheltering  dark  orgies  it  were  shame  to  tell."  2 

He  sings  Greece  as  often  elsewhere:3  — 

"  Yet  there  was  that  within  thee  which  has  saved 
Thy  glory  and  redeemed  thy  blotted  name."4 

The  grand  in  the  moral  world,  which  embraces  history, 
has  always  made  a  strong  appeal  to  the  American  mind. 
Of  Byron's  greater  elements  something  of  his  historical 
mood  seems  to  have  made  the  deepest  impression.  But 
compared  to  Byron  at  his  best  in  the  fourth  canto  of  Childe 
Harold,  Bryant  is  felt  to  be  describing  history,  without 
penetrating  into  its  inner  spirit  and  without  reaching 
finality  of  expression. 

Bryant's  one  other  Byronic  poem  begins  :  — 

"  I  sat  beside  the  glowing  grate,  fresh  heaped 
With  Newport  coal,  and  as  the  flame  grew  bright 
The  many  colored  flame  —  and  played  and  leaped 
I  thought  of  rainbows  and  the  northern  light, 
Moore's  Lalla  Rookh,  the  Treasury  Report 
And  other  brilliant  matters  of  the  sort." 

1  The  Philadelphia  reprint  came  out  in  1802. 

2  Cf.  Childe  Harold. 

3  Especially  with  reference  to  the  Greek  war  for  independence. 

4  This  is,  moreover,  one  of  those  Byronic  echoes  which  are  so  frequent  in  our  early 
I     verse;  a  moment  and  we  recall  Byron's 

"  But  there  is  that  within  me  which  shall  tire "  —  Childe  Harold,  iv,  137. 


44  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

It  has  fancy,  some  quiet  descriptions  of  nature,  a  very  pale 
shimmer  of  humor,  but  no  cleverness,  no  wit ;  and  the 
familiarity  of  Don  Juan  was  too  laborious  a  task  for  the 
sedate  Bryant.     A  contemporary  satire1  sneers  :  — 

"  And  meditations  on  Rhode  Island  Coal, 
Display  the  lofty  sphere  of  Bryant's  soul." 

Bryant  recalls  both  Byron  and  Wordsworth  in  his  love 
of  freedom  ;  his  championing  of  the  Greek  cause  is  Byronic 
in  spirit,  though  not  in  manner ;  his  reflections  on  freedom 
have  less  of  Byron's  fire,  and  more  of  Wordsworth's  dig- 
nity and  trust.  One  liberty  sonnet  on  William  Tell  is  a 
curious  fusing  of  Byron's  "  Bonnivard  "  and  Wordsworth's 
"England  and  Switzerland,"  both  in  thought,  situation, 
rhythm  and  language.  In  general,  Bryant  is  least  Bryant 
where  he  is  most  Byron. 

In  Bryant's  friend,  the  essayist  Richard  Henry  Dana, 
Sr.,  the  Byronic  elements  are  very  different.  He  is  re- 
membered as  a  poet  for  The  Buccaneer?  a  pirate  tale. 
Its  supernatural  terror  and  homely  phraseology  recall 
Coleridge  and  Wordsworth.  But  Mathew  Lee,  the  wicked 
hero  — 

"  A  dark,  low,  brawny  man  was  he, 
His  law  —  'It  is  my  way'  ; 

Beneath  his  thickset  brows  a  sharp  light  broke 
From  small  gray  eyes,  his  laugh  a  triumph  spoke "  — 

was  cousin-german  of  him  who 

"  had  a  laughing  devil  in  his  sneer,"  3 

and  brother  of  a  dark  band  of  tough  and  mysterious  gentry 

1  Reviewers  Reviewed,  see  chap.  iv.  infra. 
'-'  Printed  with  other  poems  in  1827. 
:l  The  Corsair,  i,  9. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  i8ij-i8jo.  45 

who  once  infested  the  American  imagination.  Byronic, 
too,  are  such  rhetorical  questions  as, 

"Whose  corpse  at  morn  lies  swinging  on  the  sedge?''  — 

with  the  monitory  information  :  — 

"  There  's  blood  and  hair,  Matt,  on  thy  axe's  edge." 

Still  more  obviously  Byronic  are  some  Spenserians  on 
"  Daybreak,"  in  the  mood  of  Childe  Harold,  iii,  without 
its  mysticism.  He  is  one,  he  says  self-consciously,  who 
would  prefer  to  grieve  alone,  one 

"  whom  nature  taught  to  sit  with  her 
On  her  proud  mountains,  by  her  rolling  sea  — 
Who,  when  the  winds  are  up,  with  mighty  stir 
Of  woods  and  waters,  feel  the  quickening  spur 
To  my  strong  spirit." 

There  is  "world-pain"  and  New  England  puritanism  in 
the  following :  — 

"  But  wrong,  and  hate  and  love  and  grief  and  mirth 
Will  quicken  soon,  and  hard,  hot  toil  and  strife, 
With  headlong  purpose,  shake  the  sleeping  earth 
With  discord  strange,  and  all  that  man  calls  life. 
With  thousand  scattered  beauties  nature's  rife, 
And  airs  and  woods,  and  streams  breathe  harmonies ; 
Man  weds  not  these,  but  taketh  art  to  wife ; 
Nor  binds  his  heart  with  soft  and  kindly  ties :  — 
He  feverish,  blinded  lives,  and  feverish,  sated,  dies."1 

1  An  aged  author  and  friend,  Thomas  T.  Stone,  D.D.  (1800-1895),  in  recalling  Byron's 
early  vogue,  once  told  me  of  a  conversation  with  Dana  and  a  mutual  friend  just  after 
Byron's  death.  As  the  friend  ventured  to  question  Byron's  poetical  gift,  Dana  exclaimed 
-  "  What  - 

'  From  peak  to  peak  the  rattling  crags  among 

Leaps  the  live  thunder  ! '  — 
the  man  who  could  do  that  no  poet !  " 


46  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

John  G.  C.  Brainard  (1 796-1828)  is  remembered  chiefly 
by  Whittier's  appreciative  essay.1  His  small  volume  (1825) 
contains  much  that  is  Byronic.  He  was  fond  of  the  Spen- 
serian stanza.  Spenserians  had  been  written  in  America 
before  Chihic  Harold,  but  manifestly  in  imitation  of  the 
technique  and  thought  of  18th  century  Spenserians,  espec- 
ially of  Beattie's."  In  such  as  the  following  from  "Jerusa- 
lem "  it  is  no  longer  Beattie's,  it  is  the  stanza  in  the  service 
of  eloquence  and  history  ;  at  least  that  was  the  author's 
intent :  — 

"Lost  Salem  of  the  Jews  —  great  sepulchre 
Of  all  profane  and  of  all  holy  things  — 
Where  Jew  and  Turk  and  Gentile  yet  concur 
To  make  thee  what  thou  art !  thy  history  brings 
That's  mixed  of  joy  and  woe  —  the  whole  earth  rings 
With  the  sad  truth  which  He  has  prophesied, 
Who  would  have  sheltered  with  His  holy  wings 
Thee  and  thy  children.     You  His  power  defied ; 
You  scourged  Him  while  He  lived,  and  mocked  Him  as  He  died." 

There  is  the  Byronic  reflection  on  tyrants  in  "  The  Death 
of  Alexander  of  Russia,"  concluding  with  a  reference  to 
Byron's  favorite  hero,  Washington  :  — 

"  But  where  is  he 
Who,  pure  in  life,  majestic  in  his  fall, 
Lay  down  beneath  his  native  cedar  tree? 
Potomac's  wave,  Mount  Vernon's  grassy  pall, 
That  wraps  his  relics  round,  O  !  thou  art  worth  them  all." 

He  also  imitated  Don  Juan  in  "  New  Year's  Verses  for 
1825."  Here,  as  in  much  American  Don  Juan  verse,  it 
is  rather  the  manner  than  the  spirit  which  is  reproduced. 
They  begin :  — 

1  Prefixed  to  the  posthumous  edition  of  Brainard's  poems,  1832. 

2  As  in  Dwight's  Greenfield  Hill. 


Byron's  Literary   Influence,  i8ij-/8jo.  47 

"  I  love  the  Universal  Yankee  Nation 
Where'er  they  are  —  whate'er  they  are  about, 
Whatever  be  their  wealth,  or  rank,  or  station, 
Their  character  or  conduct.     They  are  out 
Upon  parole,  or  suff  ranee,  or  probation, 
On  horseback,  or  on  foot  —  and  soon  no  doubt, 
In  coaches,  or  in  Congress!  —  bless  the  land, 
It  is  a  thing  I  cannot  understand." 

This  suggests  Greenville  Mellen's  Oar  Chronicle  of 
1826}  Mellen  shortens  the  ottava  rima,  and  adopts  a 
concluding  Alexandrine  from  the  Spenserian  stanza.  He 
proposes,  he  says,  to  be 

"  Sometimes  sad  and  sometimes  sad-satirical." 

And  he  proceeds  to  descant  on  the  vanity  of  human  wishes 
and  the  different  activities  of  men,  as  war,  commerce,  the 
Church,  the  law,  and  poetry.     As  to  glory, 

"Some  seek  it,  too,  in  writing  poetry  — 
Not  half  so  good  as  this  —  and  Heaven  forgive 
If  they  or  anyone  should  think  that  I 
Expected  on  such  fame  as  this  to  live  — 
But  so  it  is  —  if  we  can  win  Parnassus 
We  crown  ourselves  forthwith,  to  let  reviewers  lash  us." 

This  whimsical  complacency  with  one's  self  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  frequently  imitated  elements  of  Don 
Juan.  It  was  doubly  alluring  to  the  self-consciousness  of 
our  amateurs  in  verse,  and  every  amateur,  in  verse  at 
least,  is  self-conscious.  Mellen's  Martyr's  Triumph  and 
Other  Poems,"1  with  motto  from  Manfred,  are  Byronic. 
The  Martyr  s  Triumph,  Spenserians  covering  fourteen 
pages,  is  a  story  of  a  Christian  done  to  death,  told  with 
Byronic  eloquence  and  unbyronic  orthodoxy.      His  heroics 

1  Boston,  1827. 

2  Boston,  1833. 


48  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

on  "The  Light  of  Letters"  have  a  passage  to  Greece  and 
on  Byron,  beginning  :  — 

"  And  he  who  died  for  Greece !   what  tongue  can  tell 
How  mourned  the  muses  when  their  Byron  fell  ? " 

And  his  ode  on  Byron, 

"  'T  is  done,  the  pilgrimage  is  o'er, 
And  Harold  sinks  to  rest;" 

is  that  of  an  ardent  admirer. 

Such  odes  meet  us  by  hundreds  in  old  books,  but  pre- 
sumably the  best  and  most  elaborate  thing  called  forth  by 
Byron's  death  was  George  Lunt's  Grave  of  Byron}  It  is 
a  restatement  of  Byron's  own  feelings  and  philosophy  on 
man,  nature,  suffering  and  death  as  they  appear  in  Childe 
Harold,  and  in  the  manner  of  Childe  Harold,  with  here 
and  there  some  good  stanzas  ;  for  Lunt  was  genuinely  in- 
spired by  pity  and  affection  for  the  man,  and  admiration 
for  what  was  best  in  his  life  and  works.2  But  some  stanzas, 
such  as  those  to  ocean,  become  mere  imitations.  Byron's 
apostrophe  was  a  favorite  theme  with  paraphrasers.3 

Another  once  popular  tribute  to  Byron's  memory  was 
John  Neal's  turgid,  but  often  musical,  "The  Sleeper."4 
Neal  (1793— 1876),  one  of  the  most  amusing  of  our  early 
breeders  of  home-culture,  was  a  sort  of  rough  and  ready 
"  moral  Byron."  In  his  incoherent  novel  Randolph  (1823), 
one  Edward  Morton,  an  American,  is  represented  as  writ- 
ing a  series  of  letters  to  his  friend  George  Stafford,  an 

1  Boston,  1826. 

2  In  a  note  he  says,  "I  have  no  intention  either  in  the  text  or  anywhere  else  of  en- 
tering into  a  regular  and  unqualified  defense  of  Lord  Byron's  character   or  writings 

I  do  think,  however,  that   Lord  Byron  has  been  judged  in  many  instances 

harshly,  if  not  unfairly." 

3  See,  biter  alia,  Lunt's  "Hampton  Beach''  in  Poems  (N.Y.,1839),  and  "To  the 
Sea,"  by  W.  G.  Simms,  in  Areytos  (Charleston,  I860) ;  they  contain  downright  copying. 

4  Reprinted  in  Kettel,  vol.  iii,  with  long  selections  from  Lunt's  Grave  and  from  con- 
temporary Byronides,  like  Carlos  Wilcox  (also  a  follower  of  Cowper),  and  others  for 
whom  there  is  space  neither  in  text  nor  notes. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  i8ij-i8jo.  49 

Englishman,  on  American  life,  politics  and  literature  ;  and 
of  Neal  he  is  made  to  say  (Neal  having  one  eye  on  Byron, 
the  other  on  himself)  :  "Talents  ....  various  .... 
contradictory  ....  capricious."  His  "own  fires  .... 
may  consume  him  to  ashes"  ....  and  "his  whole  life 
has  been  a  tissue  of  wild  and  beautiful  adventures."  Neal 
has  similar  remarks  on  himself  in  "  American  Writers."1 
In  this  same  novel  Morton,  as  a  lad  "unaided  and  alone," 
as  a  man  "  proud  as  Lucifer,"  who  in  his  mighty  suffer- 
ings passed  in  society  for  a  mystery  and  a  bold,  bad  man, 
"  dangerous  to  know,"2  is  drawn  rather  more  after  Byron 
himself  than  after  any  one  of  his  heroes.  Thoughts  and 
phrases,  though  here  in  prose,  often  recall  familiar  lines.8 
It  is  strewn  with  off-hand  judgments  on  authors,  notably 
on  Byron,  of  whom  he  asserts,  "  the  measure  and  manner 
is  worn  out."4  Far  from  it.  For  the  model  of  Neal's 
tragedy  Otko,h  whose  hero  was 

"  sternly  desolate, 

****** 

The  monarch  wanderer  of  the  foaming  deep, 
Companion  to  the  spirit  of  the  storm, 
So  inaccessible  —  and  so  sublime," 

we  have  but  to  read  a  few  lines  in  Manfred? 

1  A  series  of  articles  in  Blackwood 's  for  1824. 

2  The  words  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  wrote  in  her  diary  after  first  meeting  Byron.  The 
phrases  above  are  Neal's. 

3  Cf.  "  O  woman  what  art  thou  made  of?  so  beautiful,  yet  so  deadly  "  with 

"  Alas,  the  love  of  woman,  it  is  known 

To  be  a  lovely  and  a  fearful  thing  ;  " 

and  "  Did  you  never  laugh  to  keep  yourself  from  crying  ?  "  with 

"  If  I  laugh  at  any  mortal  thing 
'T  is  that  I  may  not  weep." 

4  He  says  the  same  of  Scott.  For  other  criticisms  on  Byron  in  Randolph,  cf.  "Don 
Juan  is  only  a  parody  upon  Cliilde  Harold  by  the  author  himself."  Its  licentiousness  is 
made  too  much  of  —  "  Let  Don  Juan  alone  and  it  will  be  forgotten  in  another  twelfth  month  " 
.  .  .  ,  "  His  Cain,Ma7ified  and  '  Ode  on  Napoleon  '  will  outlive  anything  he  has  written  " 
.  .  .  .  "  Byron's  imagination  is  neither  brilliant  nor  delicate,  but  strong  as  death." 

5  "Ot/io  was  a  tragedy  written  for  Cooper  in  the  day  of  his  strength,  but  never  played. 
It  was  rather  too  melodramatic."  —  John  Neal,  Wandering  Recollections,  Boston,  1869. 
On  page  194.  is  his  own  account  of  his  once  famous  review  of  Byron's  poems. 

6  The  New  England  Galaxy,  Jan.  14, 1820,  reviews  "  The  deep  terrible  agonies  and  the 
deep  sullen  emotions  of  Otho  "  in  the  same  terms  as  were  current  in  praising  The  Corsair, 
Lara  or  Manfred. 


50  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

Thus,   Neal  admired   and  affected  Byron's  personality 
and    his    heroes,    and    was   ready  with  judgments  on    his 
poetry,  as  on  all  else  under  heaven.     But  he  was  too  good- 
natured,  too  shrewd  a  Yankee,  in  spite  of  his  blatant  ego- 
tism and  "wild  beautiful  adventures,"  to  take  either  with 
/  absolute  seriousness.     Byron's  style,  however,  in  its  vigor 
I  and  spontaneity,  he  cultivated  with  all  zeal.     He  some- 
I  times  has  genuine  force  and  rapidity ;  take  the  lines  :  — 

"  "I"  is  a  helmeted  band !  from  the  hills  they  descend 
Like  the  monarchs  of  storm,  when  the  forest  trees  bend. 
No  scimitars  swing  as  they  gallop  along: 
No  clattering  hoof  falls  sudden  and  strong : 
No  trumpet  is  filled,  and  no  bugle  is  blown : 
No  banners  abroad  on  the  wind  are  thrown  .... 
******* 

But  they  speed  like  coursers  whose  hoofs  are  shod 
With  a  silent  shoe  from  the  loosen'd  sod  .... 

******* 

Away  they  have  gone!  —  and  their  path  is  all  red 
Hedged  in  by  two  lines  of  the  dying  and  dead "  .  .  .  .   ' 

The  whole  passage,  too  long  to  quote,  has,  also,  a  con- 
crete reality,  a  vividness,  not  unworthy  of  Byron  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  few  instances  of  good  Byronic  poetry,  as  contrasted 
with  self-conscious  imitation.  However,  his  Byronic  style 
was  oftener  burlesque  exaggeration.  Something  he  names 
"The  Conquest  of  Peru,"  made  up  of  disjointed  phrases, 
set  off  by  long  dashes  (always  Neal's  and  Byron's  favorite 
punctuation),  is  a  series  of  whoops  and  yawps,  which  look 
on  the  printed  page  like  lines  of  racing  porpoises  at  sea, 
or  horses  on  a  steeple  chase. 

Of   a  different  sort  was  the  Byronism  of  James  Gates 

1  The  Battle  of  Niagara  and  Other  Poems,  1818.  There  is  in  the  volume  something  of 
Scott;  and  in  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  (Baltimore,  1819)  he  acknowledged  his  debt 
especially  to  Byron,  Moore  and  Leigh  Hunt,  of  whom  the  last,  he  said,  "  has  a  nicer  per- 
ception of  propriety  in  terms,  a  richer  and  more  captivating  simplicity  in  applying  epithets 
than  any  man  that  ever  breathed." 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  1813-1830.  51 

Percival1  (1 795-1856),  who  combined  celibacy  with  poe- 
try, surgery,  geology,  chemistry,  etymology2  and  mis- 
anthropy. Contemporary  notices  place  him  high,  naming 
him  with  Byron  for  his  poetry,  temperament,  and  solitary  I 
and  not  uninteresting  personality.3  Lowell,  who  did  for 
Percival's  fame4  somewhat  the  same  service  that  Macaulay 
did  for  Robert  Montgomery's,  found  in  him  early  in  life 
"  a  taint  of  Byronism  which  indeed  does  not  wholly  disap- 
pear to  the  last ;  "  whereas,  the  influence  of  Moore  led  to 
"  cloying  sentimentalism."  The  Byron  in  Percival  was  pri- 
marily the  Byron  of  proud  sorrow.  Prometheus,  "  so  like 
Byron  at  his  ordinary  level  that  it  is  hard  to  tell  it  apart,"5 
begins  :  — 

"They  talk  of  love  and  pleasure,  —  but  'tis  all 
A  tale  of  falsehood.     Life  is  made  of  gloom, 
The  fairest  scenes  are  clad  in  ruin's  pall, 
The  loveliest  pathway  leads  but  to  the  tomb ; 
Alas !  destruction  is  man's  only  doom. 
We  rise  and  sigh  our  little  lives  away, 
A  moment  blushes  beauty's  vernal  bloom, 
A  moment  brightens  manhood's  summer  ray, 
Then  all  is  rapt  in  cold  and  comfortless  decay." 

1  Life  and  Letters,  by  Julius  H.  Ward,  1866. 

-  He  spent  four  years  correcting  the  proofs  of  Webster's  Dictionary. 

3  See  Weal's  Randolph:  "  Mr.  Percival  ....  addicted  grossly  to  Byron  ";  and  Knapp's 
Sketches  of  Public  C/iaracters  (1830)  :  "  His  Prometheus  is  full  of  deep  philosophy  and  fine 
poetry  "...."  His  smaller  pieces  are  in  every  magazine  and  newspaper  in  the  country  " 
.  .  .  .  "  His  elements  are  all  poetical." 

The  London  Athenmim  for  1835,  in  articles  on  American  Literature,  which  were  pos- 
sibly written  by  Willis,  says  :  "The  first  poet  of  America  by  the  rule  of  Horace, pocta 
nascitur  non  Jit,  is  James  G.  Percival,"  p.  54  ...  .  "Percival  looks  the  poet  more  abso- 
lutely than  any  man  we  ever  saw  ;  it  is  written  on  his  forehead,  and  steeped  in  his  eye,  and 
wound  about  his  lips  ....  Percival  is  the  most  interesting  man  in  America,"  p.  55. 

Goodrich  observed  in  his  Recollections :  "  He  walked  the  world  like  one  who  neither 
accepted  nor  desired  its  friendship  ....  out  of  tune  with  the  great  harmony  of  life  around 
him  ....  I  think  he  had  been  deeply  injured  — nay  ruined  by  the  reading  of  Byron's 
works,"  vol.  ii,  p.  131. 

See  also  prefatory  notes  in  Kettel  and  in  the  British  collection  of  American  verse  en- 
titled The  Columbian  Lyre.  Kettel  compares  him  to  "the  sad  and  despairing  prophet  of 
the  British  Lyre." 

4  In  the  review  of  Ward's  Life  and  Letters,  1867. 
6  Neal,  in  Randolph. 


52  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

He  was  an  adept  in  the  pose  of  pride  and  of  lonely  con- 
templation of  himself  as  a  suffering  genius.  "A  Frag- 
ment "  contains  such  servilely  Manfreclian  verse  as  :  — 

"It  is  the  noon  of  night,  the  stars  look  faint 
With  their  lone  watching  .... 

****** 

I  have  thus  often  sat  and  deep  in  thought 

Outwatched  the  stars  .... 

....  I  have  gained 

Much  doubt  and  little  certainty 

****** 

But  I  have  gained  a  mastery  over  spirits." 

He  could  imitate  also  the  sublime  in  Byron,  both  of  nature 
and  of  history  ;  while  the  decay  of  Greece  and  her  new 
struggle  for  liberty  were  subjects  of  many  lyrics  and 
blank  verse  musings.  What  was  most  Byronic  in  Percival 
seems  just  what  made  him  most  popular  —  an  indirect  proof 
of  Byron's  own  popularity.  For  the  rest,  a  detailed  study 
of  all  Byronic  imitations  and  pilferings  of  Percival  would 
require  a  separate  volume.1 

The  one  American,  however,  now  most  popularly  asso- 
ciated with  Byron,  is  Poe.  This  rests  chiefly  on  the  notes 
of  gloom  and  "  nevermore  "  in  his  poetry,  on  his  unhappy 
life  and  romantic  appearance,2  on  his  pride,3  and  on  his 
feats  as  a  swimmer.  Only  in  his  earlier  work  does  he 
owe  anything  to  Byron.  Tamerlane  is  "as  clever  and 
uninteresting  an  imitation  of  Byron  as  was  ever  printed," 
says  his  biographer.4  It  has  the  gloom,  pride  and  guilt  of 
the  tales,  but  less  of  their  force,  clearness  and  directness, 

1  In  the  Poetical  Works  (1859)  Shelley  is  the  guiding  spirit. 

2  Poe,  in  earlier  years,  says  Hewitt,  quoted  by  Woodberry,  "  wore  Byron  collars  and  a 
black  stock,  and  looked  the  poet  all  over." 

3  "  Byron  had  sown  the  evil  seed  [of  pride],  but  it  had  fallen  on  very  favorable  soil."  — 
Woodberry. 

4  Professor  Woodberry,  in  American  Men  of  Letters  Series. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  iSi^-iSjo.  53 

for  even  here  one  finds  Poe's  mystic  vein  which  is  un- 
byronic  and  not  adapted  to  narrative.  "The  Coliseum," 
in  blank  verse,  in  subject,  situation,  thought  and  eloquence, 
is  very  Byronic  :   a  prize  poem,  it  followed  the  mode. 

In  the  same  year  with  Poe's  first  volume,  William  Gil- 
more  Simms  published  two  "  daringly  Byronic"1  volumes 
of  lyrical  verse,  and  in  1830  "  The  Tricolor,"  "  a  Byronic 
outpouring  in  honor  of  the  Three  Days  of  July."  Choruses 
of  Atlantis  (1832)  were  inspired  by  lyrical  passages  in 
Manfred.  Imitations  like  the  following  are  rare ;  a 
Zephyr-spirit  sings  :  — 


;  In  the  billow  before  thee 
My  form  is  concealed, 
In  the  breath  that  comes  o'er  thee 
My  thought  is  revealed. 
Strown  thickly  beneath  me 
The  coral  rocks  grow, 
And  the  waves  that  enwreath  me 
Are  working  thee  woe." 


But  Byronic  in  the  usual  way  is  Donna  Florida,  "  a  Tale," 
written  also  in  youth,  left  unfinished  and  published  in  1843 
with  an  apologetic  preface.  "  He  fancied,"  he  there  writes, 
"  with  boyish  presumption  that  he  might  imitate  the  grace 
and  exceeding  felicity  of  expression  in  that  unhappy  per- 
formance [viz.  Don  Juan~\  —  its  playfulness  and  possibly 
its  wit  —  without  falling  into  its  licentiousness  of  utterance 
and  malignity  of  mood."  Such  was  the  aim  of  most  of 
our  imitators,  though  they  were  not  so  generally  desirous 
of  "  forbearing  personal  sarcasm  and  domestic  satire,"  as 
the  ever-hearty  and  leonine  Simms.     Moreover,  Simms  as 

1  W.  P.  Trent,  William  Gilmore  Simms  in  American  Meti  of  Letters  Series,  p.  58  ; 
see  also  p.  7  :  "  In  all  probability  Byron  and  Scott  and  Moore  had  nowhere  a  more  devoted 
admirer  than  this  little  Charleston  boy." 


54  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

a  novelist  was  interested  in  the  story  he  had  to  tell,  and 
did  "  not  suffer  his  digressions  to  be  so  numerous  or  so 
long  as  those  of  the  work  which  he  unwisely  made  his 
model."  This  will  enable  the  reader  to  judge  of  Donna 
Florida. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

BYRON'S    LITERARY    INFLUENCE,   1830-1860. 

SIMMS,  John  Neal,  and  indeed  most  of  the  writers  men- 
tioned in  the  last  chapter  lived  on  to  do  better  work  in 
the  period  following,  but,  with  the  exception  of  George 
Lunt,  they  grew  away  from  Byron.  Some,  notably  Poe, 
lived  on  to  strike  altogether  original  notes ;  others,  like 
Neal  and  Percival,  came  under  the  influence  of  Shelley  or 
of  poets  contemporary  with  their  own  maturity.  Byron 
himself  was  now  some  years  dead,  and  the  romance  attach- 
ing to  his  person  and  adventures  had  become  with  the 
older  generation  a  too  familiar  tale.  Byronism,  between 
1830  and  i860,  is  to  be  traced  in  writers  relatively  of  less 
importance  to  the  literature  of  their  time. 

Samuel  Griswold  Goodrich,  to  whose  Recollections'  we 
were  indebted  in  the  second  chapter,  himself  wrote  Byronic 
verse.      The  Outcast"  is  made  to  confess  how 


"  One  crime  hath  twined  with  serpent  coil 
Around  my  heart  its  fatal  fold ; " 

and  to  recall  his  boyhood  with  nature  by  the  sea,  as  Byron 
had  done  once  and  again.     But  at  times, 

1  In  the  Recollections  he  speaks  of  Byron's  effect  upon  him.  "  There  was  in  me  cer- 
tainly none  of  the  misanthropic  feeling  which  made  Byron  fall  in  love  with  such  scenes. 
Nevertheless,  some  passages  in  Childe  Harold  which  appeared  a  few  years  after,  described 
the  emotions  I  then  experienced."  .  ..."  I  had  no  feeling  of  unhappiness,  no  oppressive 
sense  of  isolation,  no  anxiety,  no  ennui."    Vol.  i,  p.  154. 

2  The  Outcast  and  Other  Poems,  Boston,  1836. 


56  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

"  Such  the  madness  of  my  brain 
That  I  was  fain  to  seek  the  throng, 
To  meet  and  mingle  in  the  main[?] 
With  their  mad  revelry  and  song." 


and  soon  we  have  it :  — 

"Stranger!  a  murderer  stands  before  thee! 

I  slew  my  friend  .... 

***** 

I  wandered  forth,  I  wandered  far." 
But  at  last :  — 


"  Softened  with  the  flow  of  years 
My  breast  is  lightened  of  its  cares 

-:;:-  ***** 

My  mother's  spirit  met  my  view." 


A  touch  of  piety,  resignation  and  mother-love1  were  de- 
vices, artistic  or  otherwise,  frequently  introduced  to  chasten 
and  subdue  Byronic  tales  of  gore  and  gloom  for  American 
readers. 

Yet  the  most  complete  imitation  of  the  Tales,  not  ex- 
cepting Tamerlane,  seems  to  have  been  the  Melanie*  of 
Nathaniel  Parker  Willis.  Willis,  so  "natty  and  jaunty 
and  gay,"  as  purveyor  of  the  Byronic  dark  and  terrible  in 
love  and  crime,  shows  how  very  artificial  Byronism  might 
become,  even  among  well-known  writers.  Melanie  has 
the  movement  of  Chilton,  and  attempts  to  create  the  Italian 
atmosphere  of  Parisina,  as  in:  — 

1  Note  the  part  mother-love  plays  in  American  sentimental  literature,  as  in  the  Civil 
War  songs  and  modern  melodrama. 

2  London,  1835.  Willis  was  at  this  time  travelling  in  Europe.  His  Pencilling!  ap- 
peared in  the  same  year. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  1830-1860.  57 

"  It  was  an  endless  joy  to  me 
To  see  my  sister's  new  delight 
From  Venice  in  its  golden  sea 
To  Paestum  in  its  purple  light  — 
By  sweet  Val  d'Arno's  tinted  hills"  .  .  .  .  l 

But  when  Angelo,  Melanie's  betrothed,  is  revealed  as  a 
bastard,  the  horror  of  her  brother,  who  tells  the  tale, 
becomes  more  violently  Byronic  :  — 

"  My  heart  was  locked  !  The  lips  might  stir, 
The  frame  might  agonize  —  and  yet 
O  God !  I  could  not  pray  for  her ! 
A  seal  upon  my  brow  was  set, 
My  brow  was  hot  —  my  brain  oppressed,"  —  etc. 

Finally  Angelo's  identity  is  more  completely  discovered 
before  the  marriage  altar  by  a  nun  who  shrieks  through  a 
lattice  :  — 

"  The  bridegroom  is  thy  blood  —  thy  brother, 
Rodolph  de  Brevern  wronged  his  mother ! " 

The  nun  is  thus  the  mother  of  all  three  !  The  bride  sank 
down  dead,  but  the  narrator  stoically 

"shed  no  tears  for  her," 

realizing  that 

"  she  died 
With  her  last  sunshine  in  her  eyes." 

At  this  denouement  one  hardly  knows  whether  one  is 
more  reminded  of  Byron  —  or  of  the  bizarre  groups  in  red, 

1  There  are  sometimes  echoes  of  Scott's  phrase  and  manner,  as  :  — 
"  And  sometimes  at  St.  Mona's  shrine, 
Worn  thin  with  penance  harsh  and  long." 
The  very  first  line  :  — 

'"  I  stood  on  yonder  rocky  brow.'' 
is  obviously  after  Byron's  :  — 

"A  king  sate  on  the  rocky  brow," 
in  '•  The  Isles  of  Greece." 


58  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

yellow  and  blue  on  the  bill-boards  advertising  a  modern 
melodrama. 

In  his  Lady  Jane1  Willis  was  able  at  once  to  imitate 
and  to  maintain  something  of  himself.  It  is  in  part  a 
social  and  literary  satire,  with  more  temperamental  light- 
ness and  gayetv,  more  unity  of  story"  and  mood  in  its  two 
cantos  of  ottava  rima  than  Don  Juan  and  most  American 
imitations.  But  there  is  an  attempt  to  intersperse  the 
higher  poetry,  there  are  digressions3  with  self-conscious 
apologies,  comments  on  contemporaries,  and  a  familiar 
address  to  the  reader  in  conclusion.  Byronic,  too,  are  the 
I  clever  rhymes,  as  :  — 

"  I  am  an  old  maid,  and  tho'  I  suffer  by  it  I 
Must  change  my  style  and  leave  off  gay  society"'  — 
or  :  — 

"  Dinner !  ye  gods  !  what  is  there  more  respectable  ; 
For  eating,  who,  save  Byron,  ever  checked  a  belle  ? " 

The  situation  of  Lady  Jane  and  Jules,  the  boy  poet,  is 
after  that  of  Julia  and  Juan  :  — 

"  The  Lady  Jane  still  thought  him  but  a  lad, 
Then  why  the  deuce  she  didn't  treat  him  so 
Is  quite  enough  to  drive  conjecture  mad." 

Willis'  mild  desire  to  be  racy  — 

"I  say,  that  up  to  kissing  —  later  even 
A  woman's  love  may  have  its  feet  in  heaven"  — 

is  as  laughable4  as   his  early  reputation  for  a  rake   and 
lady-killer  among  relatives  and  friends  who  went  to  church 

1  New  York,  1844. 

-  The  sub-title  is  "A  Humorous  Novel  in  Rhyme." 

3  Byron,  his  wife  and  La  Guiccioli  are  the  subjects  of  Canto  ii.  10-11.    In  imitations  of 
Don  Juan,  references  to  Byron  are  the  rule  without  exception. 

4  See  the  Satire,  The  Paradise  of  Fools,  next  chapter. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  1830-1860.  59 

at  Brimstone  Corner.     The  morality  of  our  literature  has 
always  been  the  chief  boast  of  our  critics.1 

References  to  or  descriptions  of  Greek,  Italian  and ' 
Oriental  ruins  elsewhere  in  Willis'  poetry,  also  suggest 
Byron,  who  had  more  than  anyone  aroused  the  world's  in- 
terest in  the  picturesqueness  and  the  pathos  of  the  classic 
past.  In  this  respect  Willis'  verses  are  paralleled  by  the 
steel  engravings  of  the  Annuals,2  to  which  he  often  fur- 
nished the  text. 

The  most  many-sided  imitation  of  Don  Juan  as  of 
Childe  Harold  was  written  by  George  Lunt.  It  is  five 
cantos  of  ottava  rinia,  entitled  Julia.2,  In  general  man- 
agement of  rhymes  and  digressions,  in  attitude  of  confi- 
dential familiarity  with  the  reader,  in  interspersion  of 
higher  poetry  and  of  lyrics  it  is  rather,  facile  ;  but  in  ideas 
and  tone  its  satire  is  very  mild  (frivolity  and  dancing  in 
Boston  receiving,  perhaps,  the  most  scathing  rebuke),  and 
without  wit.  The  poetry  has  an  occasional  dreary  note, 
lamenting 

"  The  few  —  down  the  dull  blank  waste  of  years  ;  " 

and  Julia  is  described  on  the  beach  of  Nahant,  Boston's 
popular  summer  resort,4  as  one  who  sadly, 

"  gazed  ....  ever  on  the  dark  blue  sea ;  " 

1 1  know  of  but  one  imitation  of  Don  Juan  which  rivals  the  naughtiness  of  the  true  one, 
and  the  only  accessible  copy  is  locked  up  in  a  drawer  of  the  Harris  Collection  at  Providence. 
It  is  entitled  Susie  Knight,  and  appeared  in  the  New  York  Clipper  in  1863. 

-  In  pictorial  art  Turner  illustrates  a  great  inspiration  drawn  from  Byron  as  opposed  to 
the  implicit  imitations  of  the  Annual  Engravers.  Cf.  Especially  "  Childe  Harold's  Pil- 
grimage "  in  the  National  Gallery.  The  paintings  of  Cole  and  Church  in  America  betray 
a  slight  inspiration.    Their  historical  romantic  mood  owes  something  to  Childe  Harold. 

3  Boston,  1855,  with  pseudonym  Wesley  Brooks.  The  name  "Ji/lia"  is  itself  Don 
Juan-ny. 

4  The  importation  of  Byronic  heroes,  heroines,  moods  and  situations,  to  well  known 
spots  in  the  United  States,  was  one  of  the  minor  phases  of  Byronism,  and  of  the  effort  to 
found  a  national  literature  on  English  lines. 


60  Byro>!   and  Byronism  in  America. 

and  there  is  a  rather  harmless  tendency  to  a  sensuous  de- 
scription of  Julia  sleeping,  when 

"  The  folded  linen  on  her  whiter  breast 
Rose  with  its  gentle  swell." 

Two  passages  are  taken  almost  directly  from  Don  Juan} 
Miss  Julia's  coming  out,  the  ball  and  supper,  may  have 
been  suggested  b}r  Fa nny .  The  plot,  a  girl's  true  love  for 
a  poor  suitor  against  her  father's  harsh  and  natural  prefer- 
ence for  a  rich  one,  is  a  grafting  of  the  universal  bour- 
geoise  pathetic  on  Byronism,  while  the  stanzas  on  the 
childhood  home  and  on  the  ill-fated  poor  suitor's  final  re- 
turn to  his  mother's  arms,  illustrates  the  grafting  of  the 
specially  American  bourgeoise  pathetic.  In  an  earlier 
volume  Lunt  had  been  lyrically  Byronic.2 

The  Cadiro3  of  the  versatile,  long-lived  critic,  translator 
and  poet,  George  Henry  Calvert,  is  another  once  read 
American  Don  Juan,  combining  tale  and  satire.  The 
former  is  insignificant.  He  says,  beginning  with  an 
echo  :  — 

"  Choose  well  your  hero  and  he  '11  make  a  tale," 

but  confesses  shortly,  affecting  the  Byronic  negligence  :  — 

"  I  will  build  no  story,  have  no  plot." 
He  rather 

"  freely  paints 
Together,  apes,  clowns,  mountebanks  and  writers." 

His  remarks  on 

"this  gay  Italian  verse" 

1  One  is  the  famous  "  'T  is  sweet, "  etc. 

2  Poems,  New  York,  1839  ;  his  last  volume,  1884,  is  not  Byronic,  but  it  contains  a  "  Hymn 
of  Greek  Youths  "  at  Byron's  funeral  —  probably  written  much  earlier. 

s  Cantos  i-ii,  Baltimore,  1840  ;  iii-iv,  Boston,  18G4. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,  1830-1860.  61 

are  after  Byron's  in  Beppo.1  Cabiro  is  more  intellectual 
than  other  imitations.  It  contains  good  observations  on 
the  Germans,2  on  Coleridge,  Wordsworth  and  Byron  him- 
self, on  man  in  general,  and  on  marriage,  money  and 
dinner. 

Other  elements  in  Byron  appealed  to  Bayard  Taylor. 
Apart  from  his  Juvenaliaz  and  a  few  echoes  of  lyrics  in 
Byron's  dramas,4  Taylor  recalls  Byron  most  in  his  Poems 
of  the  Orient  (1854),  °^  which  "  Amram's  Wooing,"  dif- 
fering from  Byron,  however,  in  its  happy  ending,  runs 
some  of  the  lines  in  The  Giaour  and  the  Bride  of  Abydos 
pretty  closely.  For  a  bit  of  -description  in  Byron's  earlier 
vein,  not  unlike  things  in  the  Siege  of  Corinth,  read  :  — 

"  The  yellow  moon  was  rising  large 
Above  the  desert's  dusky  marge, 
And  save  the  jackal's  whining  moan, 
Or  distant  camel's  gurgling  groan, 
And  the  lamenting  monotone 
Of  winds  that  breath  their  vain  desire, 
And  on  the  lonely  sands  expire, 
A  silent  charm,  a  breathless  spell, 
Waited  with  me  beside  the  well." 

For  passion,  as  strong  as  Selim's,  read  :  — 

"Trembling  and  panting  and  oppressed 
She  threw  herself  upon  my  breast, 
By  Allah !  like  a  bath  of  flame, 
The  seething  blood  tumultuous  came 
From  life's  hot  centres  as  I  drew 
Her  mouth  to  mine,  our  spirits  grew 
Together  in  one  long,  long  kiss  — 
One  swooning,  speechless  pulse  of  bliss." 

1  Stanza  44. 

2  Calvert  was  one  of  our  earlier  German  scholars.  His  translation  of  Don  Carlos  ap- 
peared in  1836. 

3  Ximena,  or  The  Battle  of  the  Sierra  Af arena  and  Other  Poems  (1844).  "  To  the  faint 
lyrical  faculty  that  he  already  displayed  is  superadded  a  very  evident  affection  for  the  man- 
ner of  Scott  and  Byron  and  Moore  and  Mrs.  Hemans."— Albert  H.  Smith,  Bayard  Taylor, 
p.  33,  in  American  Men  of  Letters  Series.  These  poems  were  fifteen  in  number,  and  none 
have  been  included  in  later  works. 

4  The  lyrics  of  Deucalion  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  those  of  Manfred. 


62  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

Amram's  steed 

"  Of  Araby's  most  precious  breed  " 

is  described  quite  as  if  twin  brother  to  Mazeppa's.  Four 
of  Bvron's  tales  contributed  to  this  short  piece,  yet  living 
emotion  and  steady  imagination  made  it  something  of 
Taylor's  own  and  a  fair  poem. 

Albert  Pike's  poems1  are  dominated  by  Byron.2     Besides 
Spenserians  on  nature  and  on 

"  A  soothing  melancholy  hope  inclined," 

and  such  questionings  as 

"  What  is  there  left  that  1  should  cling  to  life  ? " 

where   his   sorrow   (which  was,   we    know,    sincere)   was 

more  pensive  than  Byron's,  his  lyrics  are  especially  to  be 

noted  :  — 

"Fare  thee  well  —  it  is  forever! 
Thou  hast  heard  my  dying  words ; 
Till  the  chords  of  life  shall  sever, 
Till  the  serpent  Woe  that  girds 
The  exiled  heart,  its  strings  have  broken, 
Bruised  and  crushed  and  shattered  it, 
Until  this  to  thee  are  spoken 
All  my  words  —  my  dirge  is  writ." 

His  "Song  of  the  Nabajo "  is  a  direct  paraphrase  of 
"Tambourgi"3:  — 

"The  Moqui  may  boast  from  his  town  of  the  Rock: 
Can  it  stand  when  the  earthquake  shall  come  with  its  shock? 
The  Suni  may  laugh  in  his  desert  so  dry  — 
He  will  wail  to  his  God  when  our  foray  is  nigh. 
O  who  is  so  brave  as  a  mountain  Apache  ? 
He  can  come  to  our  homes  when  the  doors  we  unlatch, 
And  plunder  our  women"  —  etc. 

1  Prose  Sketches  atid  Poems,  Boston,  1834. 

2  But  Keats'  influence  is  also  strong. 

3  Childe  Harold,  i,  72. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,   1830-1860.  63 

The  substitution  of  Indian  for  the  Oriental  names  of 
Byron's  poetry  was  only  more  common  than  the  similar 
substitution  for  the  Scottish  names  of  Scott's.  We  shall  see 
later  how  Byron's  heroes  reappear  in  paint  and  feathers. 

Charles  Fenno  Hoffman,1  now  remembered  only  for 
"  Monterey,"  published  thirty-three  amorous  lyrics,  ''Eros 
and  Anteros,"2  even  more  Byronic,  if  possible,  than  Pike's, 
in  this  vein  :  — 

"  I  knew  not  how  I  loved  thee  —  no ! 
I  knew  it  not  till  all  was  o'er  — 
Until  thy  lips  had  told  me  so  — 
Had  told  me  I  must  love  no  more ! 

"  I  knew  not  how  I  loved  thee !  yet 
I  long  had  loved  thee  wildly  well ; 
I  thought  'twere  easy  to  forget, 
I  thought  a  word  would  break  the  spell." 

George  H.  Boker  is  called  in  a  contemporary  satire3 
"  Byron  Boker,"  certainly  not  for  his  dramas,  which,  like 
most  literary  dramas  of  those  days  were  modelled  on 
Sheridan  Knowles,  but  presumably  for  his  personal  ap- 
pearance, or  for  lyrics  such  as  "Vestigia  Retrorsum  "4 :  — 

"  There  is  a  spot  I  call  accursed 
Because  my  thoughts  forever  wing 
Back  to  its  gloom  from  which  they  burst 
And  settle  on  the  loathsome  thing." 

Willis  Gaylord  Clark5  wrote  gloomy  Spenserians,  as  :  — 
"  Man  sinks  down  to  death,  chilled  by  the  touch  of  time,'"  etc., 

1  The  Vigil  of  Faith  and  Other  Poems,  N.Y.,  1845.  The  Vigil,  like  The  Lays  of  the 
Hudson,  1846,  is  an  Indian  tale  more  in  the  manner  of  Scott  than  of  Byron. 

'-  In  view  of  the  character  of  the  pieces,  it  is  natural  to  guess  that  this  title  itself  may 
have  come  from  Byron.  Cf.  Manfred,  ii,  sc.  ii :  "Eros  and  Anteros  at  Gadars."  Imita- 
tors of  Byron  often  conned  his  pages  for  poetic  titles  as  well  as  for  learned  foot-notes. 

3  Parnassus  in  Pillory,  see  next  chapter. 

4  Plays  and  Poems,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1856. 

5  Poems,  1839  (?)        Literary  Remains,  1844. 


64  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

and  a  lyric  "  Euthanasia"  in  the  melancholy  stanza  form 
of  "And  thou  art  dead,"1  a  once  popular  model. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  most  melancholy  lyrics  of 
minor  poets,  whether  on  lost  love  or  lost  hope  or  what  not, 
were  dominantl v  Byronic,  when  not  pensive,  homely,  moral- 
izing after  Mrs.  Hemans,  or,  indeed,  after  Longfellow. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  poems  of  Sarah  Helen  Whitman 
relating  to  Poe,  the  poignant  reality  of  sorrow  lends  a  gen- 
uine voice  even  where  the  situation  or  theme  is  Byronic.2 

The  gloom  in  Richard  Henry  Stoddard's  poetry  has 
more  than  once  led  to  comparisons  with  Byron.  His 
Songs  of  Summer  (1856),  containing  lines  like  :  — 

"  But  buried  hopes  no  more  will  bloom 
As  in  the  days  of  old, 
My  youth  is  lying  in  the  tomb 
My  heart  is  dead  and  cold ; " 

even  the  unrelieved  pessimism  of  The  King's  Bell  (1862)3 
and  the  dreary  "  Rome"4  are  in  a  plaintive  elegiac  minor 
key  of  resignation,  very  different  from  the  Byronic  suffer- 
ance and  revolt.  Moreover,  neither  verse  forms  nor  images 
suggest  Byron,  and  Stoddard  is  much  more  consciously 
artistic. 

Amusing  and  sad  at  once  it  is  to  turn  to  the  gloomy 
juvenile  verses  (1855)  of  William  Winter.  Stoddard  spoke 
as  a  man  out  of  his  own  heart's  life,  of  a  "world-sorrow" 
he  could  express  with  his  own  voice ;  Winter,  as  a  boy, 
self-consciously  imitating  another's  sorrow  and  another's 
voice.     Juvenile  Byronism  of  a  kind  was  never  more  com- 

1  "  Euthanasia  "  is  the  name  of  the  poem  preceding  this  in  the  so-called  "  Thyrsa  Ele- 
gies," and  Clark  evidently  borrowed  it. 

2  Poems,  Boston,  1879.  In  several  pieces  she  echoes  intentionally  Poe?s  own  voice,  as  if 
she  heard  it  still. 

3  It  shows  the  influence  of  Longfellow  in  the  language  and  versification. 

4  In  The  Book  of  the  East. 


Byron's  Literary  Influence,   1830-1860.  65 

pletely  recorded  than  in  this  little  volume  of  one  hundred 
and  eighty-nine  pages,  wherein  we  read  :  — 

"  Childhood  is  fettered,  even  the  laughing  boy 
Languid  and  satiate  with  continual  joy  "  .  .  .  . 

"  Pride  wastes  affection  —  what  is  Wisdom's  state  ? 
The  soul  is  void  —  the  heart  is  desolate." 

This  is  mentioned  here  not  without  reason,  for  the  time 
was  drawing  nigh  when  Byron  in  America  was  to  influ- 
ence only  boys  ;  indeed,  to  parallel  to-day  the  imitations 
chronicled  in  this  book,  one  would  have  to  rifle  the  desks 
of  one's  young  literary  friends,  who  are  yet  already  wise 
enough  to  keep  their  own  very  early  works  unpublished 
and  locked  up.1 

Before  the  sixties,  Browning  and  Tennyson  had  begun  to 
succeed  Byron,  though  never  popular  to  the  same  degree. 
Timrod's  fine  work  was  Tennysonian ;  Stedman's  earlier 
poems  in  stanza  and  diction  and  flavor  even  more  so  ;2  and 
Stoddard  adopted  the  In  Memoriam  language  and  stanza.8 
W.  W.  Story,  whose  earlier  work  was  after  Tennyson, 
becomes  later  in  psychological  analysis,4  in  matter,  even 
in  the  titles  he  gives  his  poems,5  and  in  the  visualized 
and  ingenious  similes  without  emotional    relation    to   the 

1  One  confessed  to  me  having  written  a  canto  to  Don  Juan  only  six  years  ago. 

2  Poems,  Lyrical  and  Idyllic,  1860.  "Flood  Tide  "  is  "Locksley  Hall,"  even  to  metre 
and  type  of  simile.    For  the  latter,  cf. 

"  Cold  and  shining  sea  of  ages  !  like  a  silver  fillet  set, 
On  the  earth's  eternal  forehead,  for  her  bridal  coronet  " 

with  Tennyson's  Pleiades,  like  "  fire-flies  tangled  in  a  silver  braid,"  and  contrast  both  trivi- 
alizations  of  the  Cosmos  with  the  great  simple  similes  of  Wordsworth  and  Whitman. 

3  See  "  A  New  Christmas  Carol  "  in  The  Book  of  the  East :  — 

"  It  was  not  thus  in  days  of  yore, 
In  brave  and  merry  England's  prime, 
Our  fathers  kept  the  Christmas  time 
The  merry  Yule  that  is  no  more." 

*  See  "A  Roman  Burger  in  Jerusalem." 

6  As  "Padre  Banelli  proses  to  the  Duke  Ludovico  Sforza  about  Leonardo  da  Vinci." 


66  Byron  and  Byronism   in  America. 

context,1  perhaps  the  most  Browningesque  of  the  poets  out 
of  George  Meredith  and  —  Browning.  W.  R.  Wallace 
(1819— 1881),  who  had  begun  with  Scott  and  Byron,2  and 
ended  with  Tennyson,3  may  be  named  as  one  of  the  many 
not  altogether  unworthy  souls  who  tried  both  the  old  and 
the  new.  Tennyson's  art  and  "divine  despair"  succeeded 
Byron's  force  and  gloom,  the  In  Memoriam  stanza,  Byron's 
Spenserians.4 

1  Cf.  "  Privation,  like  a  darkened  tube, 

Made  joy  the  sweeter,  thro'  its  darkness  seen," 

in  "  The  Confessional."  Here  is  not  the  place  to  enlarge  upon  this  point.  Poetic  influ- 
ences are  never  more  subtle  and  sure  than  in  the  similes  employed,  and  there  is  no  more 
interesting  work  for  minute  scientific  criticism  than  the  tracing  of  such  influences. 

2  Battle  of  Tippecanoe,  1837  ;  Aldan  the  Pirate,  1848. 

s  Meditations  in  America,  1851 ;  see,  especially,  verses  modelled  on  "  The  Palace  of 
Art." 

4  It  has  been  out  of  the  question  to  make  this  and  the  preceding  chapter  absolutely  com- 
plete. E.  C  Pinkney"s /tWo////  (1825),  a  two-canto  tale  of  love,  and  some  of  his  lyrics  ;  A.  B. 
Meek's  Songs  and  Poems  of  the  South  (4th  ed.,  Mobile,  1857),  and  his  Red  Eagle  (N.  Y.,  1855), 
a  tale  of  the  Creek  Chieftain  and  the  massacre  at  Fort  Mimms,  Ala.,  in  1813  ;  "Gonello,"  a 
gay  Florentine  tale  in  Epes  Sargent's  Songs  of  the  Sea  and  Other  Poems  (Boston,  1847),  a 
la  Don  Juan  ;  R.  H.  Wilde's  Hesperia  (Boston,  1867,  edited  by  his  son),  an  elaborate  imi- 
tation of  Childe  Harold  ;  and  possibly  a  few  bits  in  John  Pierpont's  Airs  of  Palestine  (1840) 
and  in  his  vigorous  lyrics,  may  be  noted  in  conclusion. 


CHAPTER   V. 

BYRON'S    SUB-LITERARY   INFLUENCE. 

THE  general  reader  has  probably  no  conception  of  the 
fecundity  of  American  poetasters  and  the  fatuity  of 
American  publishers.  It  is  extraordinary,  even  to-day, 
and  must  undoubtedly  remain  one  of  the  concomitants  of 
democracy,  until  democracy  succeeds  in  deepening  as 
well  as  in  widening  culture.  It  was  more  extraordinary, 
though  not  so  astonishing,  two  generations  ago.  When 
Willis'  "Sketches"  were  great  poetry  to  the  public,  and 
Maria  Gowen  Brooks's  Zo-phicl  appeared  as  sublime  as 
Dante  to  the  critic,1  when  The  Token,  The  Keepsake,  The 
Iris,  The  Hyacinth,  The  Jewel,  The  Ladies'"  Garland, 
etc.,  with  their  gold  trimmings  and  sentimental  engrav- 
ings, occupied  the  spot  on  the  parlor  tables  of  the  fashion- 
able and  elegant,  one  may  expect  fecundity  in  poetasters 
and  fatuity  in  publishers.  Work,  such  as  must  now  detain 
us,  can  hardly  be  called  literary,  yet  as  the  literary  impulse, 
the  literary  process,  was  there,  and  the  results  came  out  in 
hot-pressed  twelves,  attractive  enough  in  paper  and  typog- 
raphy, perhaps  it  can  be  best  classified  as  sub-literary. 
However,  in  American  verse,  the  boundary  line  is  not  easy 
to  draw  with  certainty  after  passing  the  fields  that  some 
twenty  or  thirty  have  made  finally  and  surely  their  own. 
In  the  last  two  chapters,  it  may  be,  there  are  two  or  three 
who  might  better  have  been  named  below ;   and  below,  it 

1  To  Grisnold ;  see  his  Female  Poets.    Zophiel,  though  recalling  in  its  plot  Byron's 
Heaven  and  Earth,  is  in  style  modelled  on  Southey  and  Moore. 


6S  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

may   be,    are   two   or  three  who   might  better  have  been 
named  in  the  last  chapters. 

Sub-literary  Byronism  may  be  traced  in  imitations  of 
the  English  Bards,  of  the  lyrics,  of  the  tales,  of  Childe 
Harold^  and  of  Don  Juan.  Byron's  reading  dramas,  save 
Manfred,  seem  to  have  made  little  impression  on  either 
literary  or  sub-literary  writers  ;  his  acting  dramas  none  at 
all.3  It  will  be  convenient  to  group  our  material  chrono- 
logically under  these  heads.  I  will  take  the  English 
Bards  first,  for  here  we  have  not  only  imitations,  but  fre- 
quent allusions  to  contemporary  Byronism. 


I.     The  English  Bards. 

In  1817,  Solyman  Brown  published  his  views  of  Ameri- 
can verse2  in  homespun  heroics.  They  have  something  of 
the  directness  and  miscellaneous  character  of  the  English 
Bards,  though  his  satire  was  no  servile  copy  like  some 
below.     His  attack  on 

"  The  loathsome  filth  of  Scotch  Reviewers  " 

seems  to  have  been  prompted  by  a  genuine  animus  against 
the  Edinburgh  Eeviezv,  long  shared  by  many  Americans. 
Byron  himself  is  referred  to  as  "  faithless,"  and  his  domes- 
tic troubles  are  discussed  in  the  notes,  while  a  lyric  among 

1  Byron's  effect  on  the  American  Stage  seems  to  have  been  confined  to  his  "  Drury  Lane 
Address."  See,  Rejected  Addresses  {.bona  fide),  New  York,  1821,  written  for  the  reopen- 
ing of  the  Park  Theatre,  which,  like  Drury  Lane,  had  been  destroyed  by  fire.  Charles 
Sprague  was  awarded  the  prize,  but  his  couplets  are  independent  of  Byron's.  Yet  the  two 
pieces  appear  to  have  been  popularly  associated.  See  :  — "  Will  Byron's  prize  address  at 
Drury  Lane  compare  with  Sprague's  at  the  Park  Theatre?"  —  Knickerbocker  Magazine, 
June,  1834. 

Werner  and  Sardanapalus,  however,  have  been  acted  in  America. 

-  An  Essay  on  American  Poetry  and  Other  Poems,  New  Haven.  It  was  reviewed  the 
next  year  by  Bryant  in  the  North  American. 


Byron  s  Sub-Literary  Influence.  69 

"other  poems"  represents  Lady  Byron  upbraiding  her 
Lord.1 

More  lively  is  "a  satirical  effusion"  by  J.  L.  Martin,2 
which  is  modelled  both  on  Pope  and  Byron.  With  the 
savagery  of  the  latter  he  goes  hand  over  fist  in  medias 
res :  — 

"  And  first,  ye  Yankee  Byrons,  take  your  part, 
Ye  mimic  Harolds,  feel  the  well-earned  smart, 
Ye  merchant  Corsairs,  legal  Laras  .... 
....  aspiring  to  attain 
The  lordly  poet's  dark  Promethean  strain." 

And  he  asseverates  that  they  will  have  to  do  more  than 
affect  long  hair,  a  cloak  of  "  gloomy  fold,"  and  a  naked 
neck  :   nor  even 

"  by  wandering  with  a  lowering  brow, 

Nor  walking  among  men  as  in  a  cloud." 

shall  they  attain  it.      It  is 

"  a  nauseous  trick 
Which  can  deceive  some  foolish  girl  at  most," 

since 

"  The  outward  form  cannot  the  mind  avail." 

His  advice  was  timely  :  — 

"  Go  plough  your  fields,  teach  hopeful  youth "  .  .  .  . 

anything  mundane  and  practical  — 

"  But  sport  not  antics  on  the  awful  grave 
Of  him  alas !  whom  genius  could  not  save." 


"  Fair  thee  well,  inconstant  lover ! 
If  thy  fickle  flame  was  love, 
Tho'  our  transient  joys  are  over 
I  can  ne'er  inconstant  prove," — etc. 

■Native  Bards,  "A  satirical  effusion  by  J.  L.  M.,"  Philadelphia,  1831. 


70  Byron  and  Syronism  in  America. 

Here  follow  a  page  of  panegyric  on  Byron  and  some  ob- 
servations on  American  imitators  of  Moore,  the  only  other 
contemporary  English  poet  he  names.  To  the  same  date 
belongs  Truth,  "A  New  Year's  Gift  for  Scribblers"  by 
Joseph  Snelling,  dubbed  by  Willis,  "  Smelling  Joseph."  It 
is  equally  rough,  and  somewhat  Byronic. 

In  Reviewers  Reviewed?  many  of  the  phrases  are  copied 
or  imitated  from  English  Bards,  but  the  marked  attempt 
at  reasoning,  the  frequent  triplets,  enjambements  and  Alex- 
andrines, suggest  Dryden,  who  is  besides  mentioned  promi- 
nently, rather  than  Byron  as  the  model,  and  it  need  not 
detain  us. 

Probably  the  most  notorious  in  its  day  was  The  Quacks 
of  Helicon,-  by  L.  A.  Wilmer.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a 
Popian  epistle,  beginning:  — 

"  Against  usurpers,  Olney,  I  declare 
A  righteous,  just  and  patriotic  war," 

but  the  virulence  of  the  war  is  Byronic.  He  reviles  the 
ballads  of  the  genial  Morris  and  the  inanity  of  well- 
groomed  Willis,  while  Bryant  and  Longfellow  are  handled 
as  rudely  as  Byron  had  handled  Wordsworth  and  Cole- 
ridge. Even  Poe,  who  bore  Longfellow  no  especial  friend- 
ship, felt  called  upon  to  protest.3  I  quote  as  a  specimen 
what  he  says  on  the  drama  :  — 

"  Now  poesy  and  taste  yield  up  the  stage 
To  all  the  trash  and  twaddle  of  the  age, 
To  light-heeled  harlots,  eunuchs  and  buffoons, 
Black-souled  Biancas  and  black-faced  Zip  Coons.'' 

This  was  written  at  a  time,  it  will  be  remembered,  when 

1  New  Vork,  1837,  by  Miss  A.  C.  Ritchie,  in  vengeance  for  uncomplimentary  notices  of 
Pelayo,  a  rhymed  metrical  romance  after  Southey  and  Scott. 

-  Philadelphia,  1841.     Wilmer  was  the  author  of  the  sensational  exposure,  Our  Press 

Gtl7lg. 

8  In  a  review  of  the  piece,  reprinted  in  Poe's  collected  works. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  71 

American  "poets"1  were  making  strenuous  efforts,  now 
long  since  abandoned,  to  produce  literary  stage  plays  in 
verse. 

Another  Philadelphia  satire,  The  Poets  and  Poetry  of 
America,  followed  in  1847,  under  the  pseudonym  "  La- 
vante."2  It  is  the  most  literal  of  imitations:  the  substi- 
tution of  an  American  for  an  English  name  is  often  the 
only  original  element ;  Byron's  "Boeotian  Cottle,"  becomes 
"Boeotian  Hill,"  "Unhappy  White,"  "Unhappy  Clark;  " 

"  Precocious  Sargent  to  the  drama  dear," 

is  from 

"  Coleridge  ....  To  timid  ode  and  turgid  stanza  dear," 
and 

"  Health  to  prejudging  Saunders  !  " 
is  from 

"Health  to  immortal  Jeffrey!"  — 

and  so  forth.  The  ideas,  metaphors,  allusions,  animus  are 
equally  servile.  Byron  is  mentioned  by  name  as  the  mas- 
ter satirist,  to  whom  "  Lavante  "  naturally  feels  a  kinship 
in  experience  and  in  power.      He  confessed  :  — 

"  I  too  can  rhyme  and  in  my  time  have  sung 
When  hope  was  high  and  infant  muse  was  young," 

because  Byron  had  confessed  :  — 

"  I  too  can  scrawl,  and  once  upon  a  time 
I  poured  along  the  town  a  flood  of  rhyme, 
A  school  boy's  freak ;  " 

1  As  Hillhouse,  Payne,  Sargent,  Calvert,  Matthews,  Dawes,  Osborne,  Willis,  Mrs. 
Ellet,  and  Mrs.  Mowatt,  the  actress. 

2  An  edition  (New  York,  1887),  contains  an  introduction  by  "  Geoffrey  Quarks  "  to  prove 
Poe  its  author.  This  reads  like  a  hoax  ;  Wilmer's  name  is  pencilled  in  the  copy  in  the 
Columbia  University  Library. 


72  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

and  he  closes  with  a  universal  challenge,  having   all  the 
bravado  of  the  closing  paragraph  of  his  model. 

The  author  of  Parnassus  in  Pi/lory,1  though  invoking 
the  aid  of  Horace  and  Pope,  derived  his  real  inspiration 
also  from  the  angry  young  lord.  The  elegance  of  Pope 
had  fitted  well  the  quiet,  accomplished  colonial  gentlemen, 
but  it  was  less  in  keeping  with  the  rough  and  ready  bump- 
tiousness of  these  times.     After  denouncing  Lowell  as 

"  now  sententious,  now  most  wordy," 
and  Morris  as 

"A  household  poet  whose  domestic  muse," 
Is  soft  as  milk  and  sage  as  Mother  Goose," 

and  arraigning  the  throng  who  are 

"  Aping  his  strains,  with  throats  all  cracked  and  wheezy," 

and  after  sneering  that 

"  Lunt's  lead  with  Byron's  gold  was  soldered, 
That  Wordsworth  dribbles  thro'  meandering  Stoddard, 
....  that  Harvard  grants  its  benison 
To  those  alone  who  canonize  Saint  Tennyson," 

and  pitching  into  everybody  else  on  his 

"  Pegasus  the  skittish  " 
even  to 

"our  critic  friends,  the  British,"'2 

he  dismounts,   lays  down  his  mace,   and   concludes  with 
satisfaction, 

"  An  honest  Anglo-Saxon  round  of  blows 
I  've  dealt  alike  upon  my  friends,  and  foes." 

1  "  Motley  Manners"  [A.  J.  H.  Duganne],  New  York,  1851. 

2  He  has  taken  the  rhyme  from  Don  Juan,  i,  209. 


Byron 's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  73 

His  testimony  on  then  existing  conditions  is  interesting. 
He  voiced  with  Poe,  Cornelius  Matthews,  Bryant,  Griswold, 
R.  G.  White,  and  others,  the  growing  desire  for  interna- 
tional   copyright.1     He  was    sensible   of    our  limitations ; 

Bryant  was,  he  granted, 

"  Brobdignagian  —  but 
Just  so  was  Gulliver  in  Lilliput ; " 

and  he  noted  with  patriotic  disdain  how 

"  Our  country  swarms  with  bards  who  've  crossed  the  water 
And  think  their  native  land  earth's  meanest  quarter," 

and  who 

"Muse,  just  like  Byron,  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs."2 

The  last  to  be  mentioned  bears  the  modest  title  of 
Parnassus  in  Philadelphia*  Disgusted  with  contempo- 
rary letters,  the  author  admits  :  — 

"  Once  I  was  fool  enough  to  spin  like  these 
My  idle  rhymes,  in  hopes  like  them  to  please, 
A  youthful  freak,  tho'  older  heads  have  oft 
By  time  grown  mellowed,  proved  themselves  as  soft." 

And  again,  as  Byron  had  referred  back  to  the  time  when 

"  a  Pope's  pure  strain 
Sought  the  rapt  ear  to  charm  nor  sought  in  vain," 

so  he  to  that 

"  When  Scott  and  Byron  with  a  thousand  more 
Chaunted  their  hallowed  strains  from 

Albia's  [sic]  shore." 

1  See,  inter  alia,  Speech  on  International  Copyright,  delivered  at  the  dinner  to  Charles 
Dickens,  N.Y.,  Feb.  19,  1842,  and  the  Appeal  on  Behalf  of  International  Copyright,  N.Y., 
1842,  by  Matthews  ;  Address  to  the  People  of  the  United  States  on  Behalf  of  the  American 
Copyright  Club,  N.Y.,  1843,  by  Bryant  ;  and  The  American  View  of  the  Copyright  Ques- 
tion, by  White,  in  the  Broadway  Magazine  for  May,  1868. 

2  As  H.  T.  Tuckerman  (Poems,  Boston,  1851)  who  wrote  some  blank  verse  on  Lord 
Byron  at  Venice,  or  E.  D.  Griffin  with  his  "Lines  on  Leaving  Italy,"  historic  and  Spen- 
serian (see  Griswold's  Poets),  or  George  Hill,  the  dyspeptic  consul  for  Asia  Minor,  whose 
verses  on  "  The  Ruins  of  Athens  "  bemoaned  man's 

"  weary  spirit  that  forsaken  plods 
The  world's  wide  wilderness." 

3  By  Peter  Pindar,  Jr.,  [H.  S.  Ellenwood] ,  Phil.,  1854. 


74  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

He  has  a  " goose-quill,"  like  Byron's,  "  eager  for  the  war  ;" 
he  judges,  like  Byron,  the  critical  merits  of  Jeffrey  and 
Gilford  :  and  hecomes  very  personal  in  discussing  his 
countrymen  :  — 

"  Go,  Byron-headed  Boker,  mend  thy  verse, 
But  stick  to  blank  —  tho1  poor,  thy  rhyme  is  worse ; " 

J.J.  Woodward, 

"  Seeks  to  rival  fame  and  Walter  Scott," 
and 

"  dark  revengeful  is  his  hollow  tone," 
while 

"  Deep  passion,  too,  for  amorous  maids  he  deals  [sic — feels  ?] 
And  what  he  lacks  himself,  from  others  steals  — 
Scott,  Moore  and  Byron  ; " 

but  of  Morris  :  — 

"  Simple  thy  strain,  and  sweet  thy  little  song 
Wakes  no  resentment  as  it  flows  along." 

He  subjoins  copious  footnotes,  imitating  the  dash  and  hit 
or  miss  of  his  lordship's,  with  quotations  from  Horace  and 
Pope  and  Italian  proverbs,  all  of  which  he  undoubtedly 
filched  (a  common  trick)  from  his  own  well-thumbed 
edition  of  Byron. 

Pathetic  and  portentous  is  this  in  conclusion  :  — 

"  Hark !  from  New  England's  peaceful  shores  arise 
Ten  thousand  lyres,  whose  music  sweeps  the  skies 
While,  like  the  echo  from  Apollo's  strain, 
The  South  wafts  back  a  kindred  song  again ! 
But  thou,  O  Philadelphia !  Poesy, 
Tho'  living  yet,  is  almost  dead  to  thee." 

It  is  to  the  ten  thousand   lyres   and   the  kindred  song 
that  we  must  now  turn.1 

1  Of  the  many  literary  satires  of  those  days  only  the  Fable  for  Critics  has  survived, 
and  it  is  a  genre  by  itself. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  75 

II.     The  Lyrics. 

In  the  imitations  of  Byron's  lyrics  we  are  especially 
reminded  of  Byronism  in  the  early  newspapers,  and  as  has 
already  been  said  were  reprinted  from  magazines  and  an- 
nuals.1 Byronic  lyrics  were  naturally  a  most  prevalent 
form  of  Byronism.  There  are  those  still  living  who  can 
recall  the  time  when  it  was  almost  as  fashionable  and  fitting 
for  refined  ladies  and  gentlemen  to  dash  off  a  Byronic 
stanza  or  two,  as  it  was 

"  In  gallant  days  of  ruffed  Elizabeth  " 

to  write  sonnets,  or  in  prim  Queen  Anne's  to  turn  an  epi- 
gram. Beside  much  prevailingly  amorous,  skeptical  or 
gloomy,  there  was  much  after  Byron's  Greek  poetry  and 
the  Hebrew  Melodies. 

The  verse  about  Byron  has  been  already  touched  on, 
but  the  temptation  can  not  be  resisted  to  revert  to  it  here. 
Rev.  J.  W.  Curtis,  M.A.,2  deemed 

"  The  muse  of  pure  Watts  the  finest  of  gold," 

and  said  of  Byron,  he  left 

"  a  poefs  name  to  other  times 
Linked  with  one  virtue  and  a  thousand  crimes, 
Oh !  never  may  our  country  mourn  the  fate 
Of  native  bard  like  him." 

The  one  virtue  appears  from  another  lyric  to  have  been 
his  death  for  Greece.  Rev.  J.  W.  Curtis  has  also  lines  on 
Greek  liberty,  and  he  ranked  himself  with  Brooks,  Percival 
and  Byron  as  a  philhellenic  bard. 

1  Some  were  even  reprinted  from  the  newspapers,  as  the  verses  of  "  the  Boston  Bard." 
"-Poems,  N.Y.,1846. 


j6  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

Byron's  separation  from  his  wife,  his  quarrels,  the 
refusal  of  the  dignitaries  of  Westminister  Abbey  to  admit 
his  body  to  burial,  were  also  favorite  themes.  On  the  last 
the  popular  feeling,  popularly  expressed,  was  :  — 

"When  Freedom  and  Genius  in  triumph  return 
To  rebuild  their  old  temples  and  visit  the  new, 
The  first  shall  an  altar  erect  to  his  urn, 
And  the  strains  of  the  second  shall  hallow  it  too." 1 

Further  citations  would  belong  rather  in  some  unwritten 
book  on  American  humor. 

The  most  interesting  and  tragic  of  all  followers  of  Byron 
in  his  wild  life  and  wilder  lyrics  of  despair,  bravado 
and  aspiration,  was  McDonald  Clarke,  "the  mad  poet," 
as  he  was  called  and  called  himself.  The  bitterest  experi- 
ences of  life  overthrew  his  sensitive,  craving  nature,2  and 
gave  his  numerous  erratic  volumes  sometimes  a  reality,  a 
pathos,  which  not  even  their  extreme  chaos,  crudity  and 
imitative  style  can  destroy.  He  showed,  too,  brief  flashes 
of  genius,  striking  off  occasional  metaphors  of  surprising 
originality  and  power,3  and  some  tender  stanzas  of  poign- 
ant simplicity.4  By  misfortune  and  temperament  he  was 
drawn  to  Byron.      "When  Byron  was  in  the  hey-day  of 

1  Cf.  "  The  Greeks  will  erect  a  monument  to  his  memory  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  tombs 
of  Pindar  and  Alcibiades  ;  and  when  time  has  sunk  some  glaring  instances  of  his  profligacy 
into  dimness  and  shade,  the  mitred  guardians  of  Westminster  Abbey  may  permit  a  slab  to 
be  sculptured  with  his  name."  —  Advice  on  the  Pursuits  of  Literature,  by  S.  L.  Knapp  (?). 

2  See  the  heart-rending  preface  to  his  Elixir  of  Moonshine,  N.Y.,  1822. 
8  See  "  Memorial  of  M 'Donald  Clarke  "  in  Book  Notes,  Feb.  2, 1884. 

"  Freedom  in  shirtless  majesty," 


and  the  well-known 

are  his, 
4  As 


"  Now  twilight  lets  her  curtain  down 
And  pins  it  with  a  star  " 


"  O  man  must  have  a  home,  a  home, 
It  matters  not  how  poor  it  be."  — 
He  had  none  and  Halleck  made  him  the  subject  of  his  poem,  "  The  Discarded." 


Byr oil's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  77 

his  career,  Clarke  was  among  the  most  ardent  of  his  ad- 
mirers, and,  as  he  supposed,  of  his  imitators.  He  con- 
ceived that  their  minds  had  been  cast  in  the  same  mould  — 
pictures  of  Byron,  with  open  collar  and  massy  locks,  were 
then  in  the  print  shops,  and  Clarke  sedulously  copied  his 
air  and  costume.  Byron  married  and  abused  his  wife. 
Clarke,  to  extend  the  parallel,  did  the  same  in  both  re- 
spects." 1  He  was  Byron-mad,  even  frontispiecing  his 
works  with  his  own  portrait,  having  side  pose,  collar  and 
locks  almost  identical  with  Byron's,  and,  save  for  the 
somewhat  more  angular  features,  hardly  to  be  distinguished 
from  his.  Much  of  his  verse  is  on  his  personal  misery, 
poverty,  loneliness,  disappointments  in  love  and  fame ; 
much  is  on   "  world-sorrow,"  and  on  Byron.      "  Few,"  he 

wrote, 

"  Few  have  the  strength  of  brain  to  bear 
The  unshadowed  noon  of  fortune's  day ; 
Envy's  fierce  insects  hover  there  — 
The  worrying  sting  —  the  wasting  ray, 
Will  fret  and  fever  all." 

In  the  same  piece  :  — 

"  All  lesser  lights  have  waned  before 
The  presence  of  that  soul  sublime  [Byron] ; 
Its  blaze  has  reached  the  bleakest  shore, 
Throughout  the  darkest  years  of  Time." 

Yet  he  published  some  Burlesques  on  Byron  (1823),  when 
Byron  had  begun  to  burlesque  himself.2 

1  The  New  York  Commercial  Advertizer,  Feb.  26, 1842 ;  this  is  part  gossip,  but  com- 
pare, "  We  have  known  more  than  one  fool  fancy  himself  a  genius  and  to  create  the  same 
illusion  in  others,  quarrel  with  his  wife  and  part  from  her  to  become  more  like  Lord 
Byron." —  Western  Monthly  Review,  vol.  hi.,  1829. 

2  A  Sketch  o/M'Donald  Clarke  (50  copies)  by  Clark  Jillson  appeared  in  Worcester  in 
1878.  The  author  had  evidently  been  much  affected  by  Clarke's  personal  prefaces,  from 
which  all  the  facts  for  the  sketch  were  gleaned.  It  is  extremely  crude.  J.  G.  Wilson  has 
a  few  words  on  Clarke  in  Bryant  and  his  Friends. 


78  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

Attention  may  be  called  to  the  gloomy  American  Byronic 

lyrics   with   a  pious   ending.     They  were  very  frequent. 

The  following  is  characteristically  American  :  — 

"  Doth  gloomy  fate  with  sullen  frown 
Consume  thy  soul  with  care  ? 
Hast  thou  the  draught  of  misery  known, 
Whose  dregs  are  dark  despair? 
Art  thou  oppressed  with  sorrow's  doom, 
Thy  heart  with  anguish  torn  ? 
O  soon  that  sad  and  cheerless  gloom 
Shall  make  a  brighter  morn.'' ' 

Sometimes  the  Byronic  style  is  used  for  an  unbyronic 
mood  :  — 

"  My  God  !    My  God  !    how  shall  I  speak 
The  transports  of  a  bursting  heart? 
Not  words  —  oh  no  —  they  are  too  weak  — 
My  anguished  joy  they  can 't  impart, 
Feelings  which  cloy  the  tongue  are  mine. 
Should  speech  essay  —  the  utterance  vain, 
For  holy  awe  and  love  divine 
Each  riven  faculty  enchain." 

The  author  of  this  nonsense2  tried,  however,  in  spite  of 
"  holy  awe  and  love  divine  "  to  be  pessimist :  — 

"  Though  I  live  for  the  world,  I  despise  it, 
Its  light  is  the  meteor's  glare, 
And  woe  to  the  wretch  who  shall  prize  it  — 
His  portion  is  naught  but  despair," 

as  well  as  a  stoic-lover  in  words  :  — 

"  Farewell !  forever  fare  thee  well, 
Without  one  sigh  I  part ; 
And  not  one  treacherous  tear  shall  tell 
The  anguish  of  my  heart." 

1  Poems  ;  W.  B.  Tappan,  Phil.,  1834. 

2  Jay  Adams,  in  The  Charter  Oak  ami  Other  Poems,  N.Y.,  1839. 


Byron 's  Sub- Literary   Influence.  79 

He  was  not  a  school  boy,  as  one  would  suppose,  but  "  en- 
gaged sedulously  in  active  mercantile  pursuits,"  and  only 
"by  circumstances  forced  over  the  hedge  into  the  literary 
field."  He  trusted,  he  said,  the  reading  of  his  book  would 
"  hasten  the  day  when  the  good  and  the  great  of  our  land 
shall  acknowledge  the  influence  of  soul-lifting  poetry."  * 

Byron's  lighter  lyrics  were  also  imitated  ;  for  illus- 
tration, this  of  L.  T.  Cist, "on  a  "A  Beautiful  Quakeress," 
may  suffice  :  — 

"  Oh !   never  talk  again  to  me 
Of  dashing  belles  and  high-born  misses 
Till  it  has  been  your  lot  to  see 
A  meeting  full  of  Quakeresses." 

Here  is  a  mingling  of  influences  from  different  sources 
(for  the  subject  is  that  of  an  early  poem  of  Byron,  and  the 
style  that  of  the  "  Stanzas  to  Cadiz"),  which  may  be  in- 
stanced, in  passing,  as  typical  of  a  common  phenomenon. 
Very  much  affected  was  the  lyric  of  gloom  by  the 
ladies.  From  Maria  G.  Brooks's  early  poems3  to  the 
twelfth  (  !  )  edition  of  Mrs.  Helen  Truesdell's  works,4 
in  spite  of  Moore,  Southey,  Scott,  Mrs.  Hemans,  and 
"  L.  E.  L.,"  echos  of  Byron  are  very  audible.  Mrs.  Trues- 
dell  mentions  a  certain  "  Byrona  "  who 

"  touched  a  mournful  chord 
That  vibrates  every  hour, 
With  all  a  poet's  gentle  skill, 
A  woman's  gentle  power," 

but  her  fame  seems  to  have  escaped  even  Griswold.  Her 
"vibrations"  were  probably  in  the  Annuals. 

1  See  his  preface. 

2  Trifles  in  Verse,  Cincinnati,  1S45.    The  author  also  imitated  Burns. 

3  Judith  and  Other  Poems,  Boston,  1820. 

4  Cincinnati,  1859. 


80  Byron  and  Byronism  in   America. 

Main-  pages  might  be  occupied  with  chronicling  the 
"Melodies."  One  author  complained  in  his  preface,  "We 
already  have  a  sufficiency,"  instancing  "Amatory,"  "Sa- 
cred,*" "  Pastoral,"  and  even  "  Indian  Melodies" — to  which 
he  might  have  added  "  Cold  Water  Melodies,"  by  a  forgot- 
ten temperance  advocate,  Wallace.  He  found  this,  how- 
ever, no  argument  against  his  own  Christian  Melodies? 
Almost  all,  as  far  as  examined,  are  after  Byron,  rather 
than  Moore  or  Mrs.  Hemans.  Even  to-day  many  good 
Bible-reading  Americans,  who  renounce  Byron,  know  the 
Hebrew  Melodies.  Many  verses  were  almost  copies,  as 
this  from  the  fourth  (  !  )  edition  of  Christian  Songs,  by  a 
Philadelphia  pastor  " :  — 

"  The  rough  winds  were  warring  on  broad  Galilea, 
And  the  fathomless  waters  rolled  foaming  and  free, 
The  strong  blasts  of  Hermon  came  down  in  their  might 
And  the  palms  of  Manasseh  were  bowed  in  their  flight." 

"  She  Walks  in  Beauty"  and  "  Belshazzar"  were  studied 
with  similar  results. 


III.     The  Tales. 

With  good  souls  of  more  leisure  Byronic  tales  were  a 
favorite  employment,  especially,  it  seems,  about  1830-1840. 
The  conjugal  couple,  James  G.  and  Mary  E.  Brooks,  found 
time  for  a  deal  of  Byronizing,  but  the  flower  of  their  joint 
labors  was  The  Rivals  of  Este?  The  gloom,  the  crime,  the 
nature  scenes,  the  phrases  and  the  meter  are  from  Parisina, 
as  indeed  the  title  suggests.     Yet,  for  an  imitation,  it  may 

1  George  Bettner,  M.D.,  N.Y.,  1853. 

2  Rev.  J.  G.  Lyons,  Phil.,  1849.  Did  he  have  a  large  and  devoted  congregation  —else 
how  a  fourth  edition  ? 

3  N.Y.,  1829. 


Byron 's  Sub- Literary  Influence.  81 

rank  higher  than  Willis'  Mclanie,  as  may  be  guessed  from 
this  brief  extract :  — 

"Once  more  'tis  solitary,  lone, 
Where  love,  crime,  hatred,  claimed  their  own, 
And  owlets  rear  their  dusky  brood, 
Where  he  the  dark  avenger  stood. 
There  is  no  death-wail  by  that  grave, 
Save  as  the  night  wind  meets  the  wave, 
And  if  perchance  one  forest  flower, 
Blushes  in  that  deserted  bower, 
Unloved,  unplucked,  its  beauties  glow 
Only  for  her  that  sleeps  below." 

Very  Byronic  tales  predominate  in  the  works  of  Mrs. 
S.  A.  Lewis.1  Florence,  an.  Italian  Tale  of  Lord  Ugo's 
only  child  and  her  lover  Leone,  also  recalls  Parisina ;  this 
is  followed  by  one  on  "  Zenel," 

"  a  peasant's  daughter,  blithe  and  fair  " 

of  Sunny  Spain.  Byron  did  much  to  popularize  Spain  in 
Europe,  especially  in  France ;  the  same  psychological 
process  gave  America  "Zenel,"  and  may  have  indirectly 
aroused  Bryant  to  his  translations  from  the  Spanish.  This 
tale  contains  a  curious  admixture  of  the  bourgeoise  senti- 
mental, neither  Spanish  nor  Byronic;  but  her  "Pirate,"  of 
whom 

"  None  knew  his  lineage  or  his  land 
Nor  when  he  first  came  to  their  strand, 
The  crime  or  woe  that  drove  him  from 
His  country,  kindred,  native  home," 

brings  us  back  to  The  Corsair  and  Lara,  while  her 
"Bride  of  Guayaquil  "  is  a  short  Indianized  Byronic  tale. 

1  Records  of  the  Heart,  N.Y.,  1844. 


82  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

For  the  rest,   Mrs.  Lewis  was  a  cultivated  lady,  fond  of 
I  *>\  ron  and 

"his  immortal  wreath  of  woes,'1 

who  could  quote  Latin  and  Italian,  and  explain  Greek 
meters  in  her  notes. 

In  "  Kaughnawah"'(  !)  Byron's  hero,  tricked  out  with 
feathers,  knife  and  tomahawk,  and  moving  with  contorted 
visage  — 

("  a  hellish  scowl  his  visage  wore  ")  — 

delivered  a  stoic  speech 

"  on  a  frowning  rock  " 

above  Niagara,  and  then  leapt  over  and  down.  The 
Indian  of  the  popular  imagination,  about  this  time  also 
very  numerous  in  American  melodrama,  this  proud,  brave, 
free,  vengeful,  blood-thirsty,  generous  relic  of  "an  extinct 
race  which  never  existed,"  had  many  traits  in  common  with 
the  earlier  Byronic  hero,  and  the  temptation  to  depict  him 
in  the  verse  of  the  Giaour  or  of  Lara  was  not  always 
resisted.  Kaughnawah  was  not  drowned  in  Niagara  —  at 
least  not  permanently,  but  space  forbids  our  following  him 
through  the  pages  of  other  poetasters.2 

Less  obvious,  but  scarcely  less  frequent,  was  the  meta- 
morphosis of  sex.  Byron's  women  were  the  softest  and 
gentlest  of  creatures ;  those  of  his  imitators  were  as  often 
also  dark  wretches  like  this  same  author's  "  Zethe,"  who 
figures  in  a  tale  of  guilt,  pride  and  thunderstorm  : — 

1  Zethe  and  Other  Poems,  E.  D.  Kennicott,  Rochester,  1837. 

-  Even  the  poor  little  girl,  Lucretia  Davidson,  could  write  in  her  fourteenth  year :  — 
"  What  sight  of  horror,  fear  and  woe 
Now  greets  Chief  Hillis-ha-ad-joe- 
What  thought  of  blood  now  lights  his  eye  ?  "  — 
Remains,  edited  with  biographical  sketch  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse  ;  N.V.,  1825(?) 


Byron's  Sub-Literary   Influence.  83 

"Though  young  in  years,  no  roses  blushed 
Upon  that  pale  and  grief-worn  cheek, 

****** 

Those  awful  omens  that  reveal 
The  conflicts  of  a  sinful  soul  — 

O  God  !   it  was  a  fearful  sight 

At  such  an  hour  —  on  such  a  night 

To  view  a  thing  so  frail  —  so  fair." 

"Zethe"  is  thus  a  compound  of  the  Byronic  hero  and 
heroine.  But  from  other  pieces  in  the  volume  we  judge 
the  author  to  have  been  an  orderly,  pious  citizen,  who 
desired 

"  A  hope  well  anchored  in  the  sky," 

and  loved  and  sang  his  "  Cottage  Home"  as  sentimentally 
as  Woodworth  "The  Old  Oaken  Bucket." 

Mrs.  E.  Anne  Lewis,  a  good  mother  and  housewife  no 
doubt,  seems  to  have  outstripped  all  her  sisters  in  Byron- 
izing.      Her  Child  of  the  Sea  (1848),  on, 


and 


"  The  sorrowings  of  Beauty  in  her  prime," 
"  Despair  untold  before  in  prose  or  rhyme," 


once  received  some  attention.1  It  is  modelled  on  The 
Corsair?  with  the  scene  laid  in  the  Levant  and  personages, 
Zamen  and  Mynera,  of  oriental  name,  but  it  draws,  too, 
upon  the  incidents  in  Byron's  own  life.  Two  of  the  cantos 
are  headed  with  quotations  from  Petrarch  to  match  Byron's 
from  Dante  ;  the  third  canto  shows  from  the  text  and  ex- 
planatory notes  that   she   has   been  reading    The  Island, 

1  It  was  favorably  reviewed  by  Poe  with  characteristic  —  chivalry  ;  see  also  his  Corres- 
pondence. 

-  Edwin  C  Holland,  of  Charleston,  had  remodelled  The  Corsair  into  a  blank  verse 
melodrama,  (1818),  preserving  plot  and  original  diction,  I  am  told.  I  have  not  been  able  to 
see  it  myself. 


84  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

while  her  frequent  citations  from  Gibbon  are  taken  out  of 
Byron's.  It  contains  also  many  allusions  to  Greece,  pil- 
fered from  The  Giaour  and  Childe  Harold.  Her  "  Isa- 
belle,  or  the  Broken  Heart,  a  tale  of  Hispaniola,"  is  after 
The  Prisoner  of  Chillon ;  her  "Lament  of  LaVega," 
fifteen  Spenserians,  echoes  the  lines  and  spirit  of  Childe 
Harold,  i-ii ;  some  extremely  "Elegiac  Stanzas,"  result- 
ing from  "  Meditations  on  the  Genius  and  Poetry  of  Le- 
titia  Elizabeth  Landon,"  are  as  close  to  Childe  Harold,  iv, 
with  at  least  one  echo  from  Adonais.  "The  Last  Hour 
of  Sappho"  was  spent  in  mouthing  heroics  a  la  Corsair, 
the  final  plunge  being  described  with  abrupt  lines,  after 
the  close  of  Gray's  "  Bard." 

I  will  cite  but  the  name  of  Emma  C.  Embury,1  who  in 
her  youth,  over  the  Byronic  signature  "  Ianthe,"  described 
"  Guido,"  a  "castle's  lord,"  (one  who 

" in  truth 
Had  tasted  sorrow," 

and  who,  like  Lara  at  the  ball, 

"  stood  apart  from  all,  —  a  smile 
Of  cold  contempt  curled  his  pale  lips  the  while  ") ; 

and  the  names  of  Elizabeth  C.  Kinney,  who  wrote  Felicita? 
"  a  metrical  Romance"  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  pages ; 
of  William  Duff  Telfer,  who  described  the  first  battle  of 
Manassas  ;3  of  Pliny  Earle  ;4  of  Mary  Pumpelly  ;E  and  will 
now  replace  the  works  of  these  estimable  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen, kindly  and  reverently  on  the  shelves. 

1  Poems,  first  collected  edition,  N.Y.,  1869. 

5  N.Y.,  1855. 

3  N.Y.,  1864. 

4  Marathon  and  Other  Poems,  Phil.,  1841. 

6  Poems,  N.Y.,  1852,  with  an  introduction  by  Willis. 


Byron 's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  85 

It  must  be  noted  that  the  oriental  tales  show  sometimes 
traces  of  Lalla  Rookh,  the  Indian  tales,  of  Scott.  Scott 
was  often  an  independent  model,  and  as  such  as  easily 
recognized  as  Byron.  This  from  Ensinorel\s  as  good  an 
illustration  as  any  :  — 

"  A  sachem  he,  of  high  renown, 
Yet  not  a  Narragansett  he, 
Or  Delaware  or  Shawanee, 
Huron  nor  Ottawa  his  race, 
Nor  his  a  Tuscaroran  face ; 
Nor  led  he  e'er  to  battle  forth 
The  five  fierce  nations  of  the  North." 

Scott's  northern  clan  chieftains,  by  the  way,  were  not  so 
very  distantly  related  to  Byron's  Levantine  pirates ;  the 
Celtic  Ossian  and  the  oriental  Giaour  were  but  two  phases 
of  the  same  romantic  movement ;  and  a  third,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  to  be  found  in  the  American  Indian,  whether  in 
Cooper,  on  the  stage,  or  in  such  tales  as  these  after  Scott 
and  Byron. 

IV.     Childe  Harold. 

On  the  imitations  of  Childe  Harold  we  may  recall  here 
the  words  of  Goodrich  and  Longfellow,  and  the  brief 
remarks  in  chapters  ii,  iii  and  iv.    It  is,  however,  only  when 

1  P.  H.  Myers,  N.Y.,1840. 

Other  imitations  of  Scott,  without  reference  to  merit,  were  :  —  William  and  Ellen ,  N.Y., 
1811.  The  Lady  of  the  Wreck  (a  parody) ,  George  Colman,  Jr.  [?]  The  Lay  of  the  Scottish 
Piddled  parody),  J.  K.  Paulding,  N.Y.,  1813.  Jokeby,  ibid.  Blue  Lights,  J.  M.  Scott, 
N.V.,  1817.  Yamoyden,  Rev.  J.  W.  Eastburn  and  Robert  C  Sands,  N.Y.,  1820.  (Parts 
are  reminiscent  of  Byron  ;  Sand's  metrical  romance,  The  Bridal  of  Vaumond  is  founded  on 
the  plot  of  Byron's  Deformed  Transformed.)  Powhatan,  Seba  Smith,  N.Y.,  1S41.  The 
Maid  of  the  Doe,  Cornelius  Matthews,  [?]  Washington.  1812.  Tecumseh,  G.  H.  Colton, 
N.Y.,  1842.  Redburn,  anon.,  N.Y.,  1845.  Proissart  Ballads,  P.  P.  Cooke,  Phil.,  1847. 
Prontenac,  A.  B.  Street,  1849.  Monterey,  Frances  J.  Crosby,  N.Y.,  1851.  (She  wrote  a 
short  Byronic  piece  in  blank  verse,  called  "The  Misanthrope.")  Ulric,  T.  S.  Fay,  N.Y., 
1851.  Marmion  was  dramatized  by  J.  N.  Barker,  and  acted  in  New  York  in  1812;  see 
Dunlap's  History  of  the  American  Stage,  N.Y.,  1832. 


86  Byron   and  Byron  ism  in  America. 

we  go  to  Griswold  or  to  the  forgotten  works  below  that 
we  learn  for  ourselves  how  numerous  they  were.  The 
Byronic  Spenserian  became  the  general  medium,  not  only 
for  affected  "world-sorrow,"  but  for  would-be  eloquence 
on  history,  nature,  ethics,  philosophy  and  orthodox  re- 
ligion. 

Its  rhetorical  tone  appealed  especially  to  the  poetizing 

clergy,  of  whom  William  Allen,  D.D.,   may  be  taken  as 

representative.      He  was  the  author  of  Wunnisso,  or  The 

Vale  of  the  Hoosatunnuck?  "  a  poem  with  notes."    Besides 

its  ungrateful  aspersions  on  its  model  — 

"Byron!    Idol  of  a  giddy  age!"  — 

****** 

"Genius  of  immortal  mind  how  sunk!"2 

and  on  the  "  vile  Anacreonic  notes,"  and 

"  sullen  gleams  of  fierce  demoniac  fire," 

(contrasted  very  fittingly  with  "Montgomery's  congenial 
mind  "),  its  heroine,  who 

"  loved  all  nature's  varying  shapes  " 

and  felt  with 

"  A  joy  sublime  her  lofty  mind  o'erswayed," 

has,  though  but  an  Indian  virgin,  some  features  of  the 
solitary  Pilgrim.  The  good  Doctor  was,  for  all  his  com- 
placent pomposity  and  provincial  solemnity,  the  distin- 
guished President  of  the  college  which  gave  us  Longfellow 
and  Hawthorne. 

1  Boston,  1856,  but  written  in  1826. 

2  Cf.   The  Course  of  Time,  by  The  Rev.  Peacock,  of  Scotland. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  87 

Indian  themes  were  a  favorite  with  S.  L.  Farmer,1  who 
told  how  :  — 

"  From  Damariscotta  the  strong  Norridgewock 
Went  forth  and  dared  Pejypcot's  boiling  flood/' 

Equally  burlesque  is  his  piece  on  "The  Disinterred  Mas- 
todon": — 

"  Dark  mouldered  relic  of  an  elder  time," 

where  Byron's  historic  mood  is  expanded  into  the  prehis- 
toric without  a  corresponding  expansion  in  poetic  effect. 

The  majestic  sadness  of  the  past  was  reiterated,  with 
pilferings  also  from  the  Hebrew  Melodies,  by  J.  Law- 
rence,2 Jr.,  and  C.  W.  Everest ; 8  but  it  would  be,  perhaps, 
as  fatuous  and  idle  as  the  "poems"  themselves  were  I  to 
chronicle  scrupulously  every  one  of  the  authors  whose 
volumes  are  piled  about  my  desk.  Here  is  the  Rev.  T. 
Newton  Brown,4  who  muses  on  time's  flight  and  the 
heavenly  hope  ;  here  is  the  Rev.  Phineas  Robinson,  D.D., 
with  four  hundred  and  eleven  pages  on  "Immortality? — 
a  poem  in  ten  cantos;"  here  is  the  anonymous  author  of 
Song  Leaves?  who  in  an 

"  unpretending  tale  chimed  to  a  broken  lute," 

illustrates  the  point  of  his  preface  that  "poetry  in  weak 
hands  is  a  powerless  weapon,"  by  giving  us  some  hundred 
pages  of  Spenserians  on  storms,  stars,  politics,  laudation  of 

'  Poems,  1830. 

-  Poems,  N.Y.,1833. 

;<  Babylon,  Hartford,  1838. 

4  Emily  and  Other  Poems,  Concord,  N.H..  1840. 

•r'N.Y.,1846. 

11  N.Y.,  1852. 


88  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

poets  and  heroes,  fame,  freedom,  retribution,  castles  of  the 
Rhine  and  "  woman's  honied  kiss"  for  which,  like  Byron, 
he  "braves  the  world"  or  "commits  a  crime;"  here  is 
S.  L.  Fairfield,1  firmly  believing  that 

"  There  's  a  cheering  hope  still  left  in  heaven," 

yet  wailing 

"  all  is  pain, 
Our  birth,  life,  death  —  and  onward  as  we  glide 
We  leave  behind  the  things  we  love,  full  fain 
To  linger  near  past  joys  we  shall  not  see  again;" 

here  is  J.  F.  Col  man,2  who  somewhere  in  his  nine  cantos 
wails,  too,  how 

"  Shivering  we  grope  in  memory's  moonless  night 
And  stretch  blind  arms,  which  ne'er  may  reunite 
The  severed  ties  of  youth," 

repudiating,  however,  Byron's  irreligion  and 

"  foul  atheism's  leprous  stain," 

while  he  tries  the  sublime  in  describing  Waterloo  and  in 
bidding  the  sun  to 

"  roll  along,  on  thy  unsevering  axle ;  " 

here  is  W.  T.  Bacon3  with  his  views  on  "Life"  and 
Greece  and  Rome  and  hard  words  to  tyrants,  who  also 
imitates  Byron's  blank  verse  in  "A  Vision  of  War;" 
here  is  W.  O.  Bourne,4  who   discourses  on  Egypt  and  on 

"  the  iron  pen  of  time 
Writing  didactic  lines  of  light  and  truth  sublime," 

believing 

1  Poetical  Works,  Phil.,  1842. 

2  The  Island  Bride,  Boston,  1846. 
:i  Poems,  Cambridge,  1848. 

*  Poems,  N.Y.,  1850. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  89 

"  that  alone  shall  tower 
Which  bears  diviner  impress,  or  which  springs 
Where  Heaven's  transcendent  power  its  life  immortal  flings;" 

here  is  Charles  Sangster,1  who  cultivates  the  grand  and 
gloomy  in  nature,  and  apostrophizes  Montcalm  and  Wolfe, 
and  mingles  some  incoalescent  imitations  of  Shelley  ;  here 
is  R.  T.  Conrad  with  Devotional  Poems;'1  and  Lurania 
Munday  with  Acacian  Lyrics?  as  melancholy  and  help- 
less as  you  please,  in  spite  of  the  obvious  influence  of  Mrs. 
Hemans  ;  here  is  W.  G.  Dix,4  presenting  us  "Thoughts" 
and  "Visions  of  Immortal  Life;"  and  Anna  C.  Lynch,5 
with  a  school  composition,  apostrophizing  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  a  description  of  "Byron  among  the  Ruins  of 
Greece,"  embellished  with  an  engraving  ;  and  here  is  John 
Holland,6  grandiloquent  of  mountains,  victories,  and  noble 
red  men  and  Bunker  Hill  — 

("  Yet  men  will  mingle  and  comment  upon 
Thy  melting  legions  and  the  wondrous  day 
When  earth  revealed  a  second  Marathon 
And  bravery  reared  a  new  Thermopylae  ")  — 

here  is  Sidney  Russel,7  with  much  to  say  on  New  England 
and  the  innocents  burned  on  "the  execrable  hill"  at 
Salem,  whose  other  models,  as  he  mentions  in  his  preface, 

were    Tennyson    and    Browning ;    here    is but    these 

should  do.  Yet  none  of  these  writers,  it  is  but  fair  to 
say,  was  more  servilely  imitative,  more  impudently  silly 
than  a  certain  youth  who  as  late  as    1890    published    an 

1  The  St.  Lawrence  and  Other  Poems,  N.V..  1856. 

2  Phil.,  1862. 

3  Cincinnati,  I860. 

4  Boston ,  1848. 

6  Poems,  N.Y.,  1849. 
c  Poems,  Boston,  1858. 
'  Poems,  Phil.,  1859. 


oo  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

In  Memoriam  in  that  great  centre  of  modern  enlighten- 
ment, Chicago ;  for  the  vain  fecundity  of  American  poet- 
asters did  not  cease  altogether  when  they  ceased  to 
imitate  Byron. 


V.     Don  Juan. 

I  have  remarked  more  than  once  on  the  popularity  of 
the  Byronic  Mrs.  Hemans ;  and  one  has  but  to  glance  at 
her  tales  and  longer  historical  poems,  with  their  romanti- 
cism, gloom  and  pseudo-grandeur,  with  their  French  and 
Italian  mottoes,  to  note  affinities  with  Byron  on  the  one 
hand,  and  with  our  versifiers  on  the  other.  The  influence 
of  her  peaceful,  often  "  prettily  sentimental"  poems  of  the 
affections  belongs  to  another,  though  related,  chapter  of 
American  verse,  and  is  mentioned  here  only  to  make  clear 
the  distinction  ;  imitations  of  these  latter  was  the  peculiar 
merit  of  Mrs.  Sigourney  and  many  Annualists.  But  her 
Byronic  poetry  served  less  for  direct  imitation  than  as  an 
influence  for  the  imitation  of  Byron,  in  fostering  his  sub- 
jects, moods,  methods.  Only  rarely,  as  in  some  slight 
deviation  from  the  regular  Spenserian  stanza,  in  some 
phrase  or  quotation,  is  she  directly  imitated.  Byron,  him- 
self, is  the  model  toward  which  she  drew  her  admirers. 
With  imitations  of  Don  Juan  we  have  an  analogy  and  a 
difference.  Halleck's  Fanny  was  contemporaneous  with 
Don  Juan,  and  seems  to  have  been  only  less  popular.  It 
not  only  inspired  many  to  imitate  its  models  {Bcftfio  and 
Don  Juan),  but  served  itself  quite  frequently  as  a  model ; 
yet  it  seems  fair  to  group  the  imitations  of  Fanny  here 
along  with  the  more  patent  imitations  of  Don  Juan.  Fre- 
quently characteristics  of  title,  plot,  satire  and  stanza  are 
after  Fanny,  but  the  self-conscious  buffoonery,  the  com- 


Byrorts  Sub-Literary  Influence.  91 

placent  irony,  the  conceited  familiarity  with  gods  and  men, 
the  direct  allusions  to  Byron  rather  than  to  Halleck,  all 
indicate  the  dominance  of  the  former. 

An  early  instance  is  the  Sukey1  of  W.  B.  Walter — a 
degenerate  great  grandson  of  Increase  Mather,  and  (as 
the  opening  stanza  has  it) 

"  One  of  those  melancholy  men, 
Who  sometimes  like  to  strike  a  harp  of  sadness," 

with  whom  we  have  already  become  so  familiar.  But 
Sukey 

"was  a  village  girl  —  an  orphan  child"  — 

who  got  mixed  up  with  pirates,  and  came  to  a  tragic  end. 
The  copy  examined  had  once  belonged  to  Jacob  Abbot, 
and  his  marginal  pencilled  comments  and  illustrative  draw- 
ings are  at  least  as  readable  as  the  text.  Walter  had 
written  :  — 

"  I  never  shrink 
From  giving  my  opinion"  — 

Abbot  comments  "  no  one  doubts  this."     The  line  on  a 

"  Solemn  glen  where  peers  the  place  of  graves  " 

is  adorned  with  a  clever  caricature  of  a  village  church- 
yard. Abbot  further  points  out  with  mock  solemnity  some 
curious  metamorphoses  in  the  color  of  Sukey's  hair,  yel- 
low-brown at  the  beginning,  raven  black  at  the  end. 
Walter  has  (like  Halleck)  some  stanzas  of  asterisks  —  the 
commentator  writes  "  Very  fine — you  are  pleased  to  be 
facetious."  Abbot  also  notes  some  flagrant  thefts  from 
John  Neal's  "Maniac   Harper."     We   may  judge,    then, 

1  Boston,  1821. 


92  Bvron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

that,  if  there  were  fools  who  wrote  such  things,  not  all 
were  fools  who  read  them.  Walter's  notes,  though  largely 
taken  up  with  traitorously  exposing  Lord  Byron's  "  pilfer- 
ings,"  ape  his  critical  style  and  opinions.  In  the  same 
year  our  author  published  a  volume  of  Byronic  lyrics, 
dedicated  to  Pierpont  —  which  —  if  we  are  to  believe  his 
preface  —  "contain  specimens  of  the  precious  and  mel- 
ancholy toil  of  years."  He  trusted  "posterity"  would 
"  illumine  the  shrine  that  consecrates  his  fame."  If  pos- 
terity has  been  busy  elsewhere  with  its  candles,  his  con- 
temporary fame  at  least  was  consecrated  by  a  third  edition 
of  Sukey  in  Baltimore  the  same  year,  and  by  "  the  late 
William  Crafts,"  who  wrote  "Kitty" — with  the  justification, 
"  In  New  York  they  have  Fanny ;  in  Boston  Sukey,  and 
why  should  we  not  have  Kitty  in  Charleston  ?  "  Of  Kitty, 
I  may  say,  it  was  a  little  better  than  Sukey.  Thus  the  fol- 
lowing stanza  from  the  former  will  enable  us  to  judge  the 
quality  of  each  :  — 

"  I  love  a  horseman  on  a  likely  horse 
But  precious  few  of  these,  alas !  there  are  ; 
I  have  seen  better,  but  I  ne'er  saw  worse 
For  either  purpose,  whether  peace  or  war. 
'T  is  rather  strange,  since  every  one  is  able 
To  hire  a  good  one  at  a  livery  stable."1 

The  year  after  Sukey,  New  York  saw  a  prose  dramati- 
zation of  Don  Juan,-  in  which  the  Sultana,  conquering  her 
hopeless  passion,  generously  unites  Juan  with  Haidee,  who 
has  followed  him  in  male  attire. 

1  Mr.  Crafts  has  also  borne  witness  in  prose  toiiis  studies  of  Don  Juan .  He  once  com- 
mented: "How  shall  Poetry — the  refined  companion  of  the  Graces  and  Virtues,  with 
Honor  on  her  brow,  Inspiration  in  her  bosom  and  Immortality  in  her  right  hand  —  palliate 
her  abandonment  of  her  high  destiny  and  polluting  intercourse  with  Sin  and  Infamy  ?  "  — 
Quoted  by  Legare  in  Southern  Review  for  May,  1828. 

-  The  Sultana,  or  a   Trip  to   Turkey.    Anon.   [Bailey],  N.Y.,1822. 


Pyron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  93 

Isaac  Starr  Classon,  author  of  Horace  in  New  York, 
wrote  a  continuation  of  Don  Juan,1  in  two  cantos,  with  the 
same  manners,  morals,  opinions,  style,  and  even  story,  in 
which  "her  frolic  grace  Fitz  Fulk  "  succeeds  to  the  indis- 
cretions of  Julia  and  Haidee  and  the  Duke  to  the  indigna- 
tion of  Don  Alphonso  and  Lambro  ;  and  though  he  indulges 
in  a  good  many  asterisks,  there  are  some  boldly  printed 
stanzas  almost  rivalling  the  original.  He  bolsters  out  his 
notes  with  cribbings  from  Byron's  —  a  trick  now  so  familiar 
to  us  that  it  is  scarcely  worth  mentioning  more  ;  to  the  line 

"  To  give  an  infant  inclination  play  " 

he  comments,  "  All  minors  are  termed  infants  in  law,"  just 
as  Byron  had  commented  to 

"  In  law  an  infant  and  in  years  a  boy  " 

in  the  Hours  of  Idleness.     A  passage  on  Napoleon  is  the 
best. 

We  sometimes  come  upon  a  fusion,  or  confusion,  of  Don 
Juan  and  Childc  Harold,  as  in  "The  Minstrel  Boy"2  of 
that  deaf  and  dumb  prodigy,  James  Nack,  who  "had  a 
better  knowledge  of  rhyming  words  than  any  poet  living  ;  " 
he  grafts  the  moods  of  the  latter  on  the  ottava  rimas  of  the 
former.  So,  too,  in  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Pilgrim?  "by 
the  author  of  The  Pilgrimage  of  Ormond,"  which  is  in 
Spenserians,  but  a  medley  of  Childc  Harold  moods  and 
Don  Juan  familiarity.      Here,  too,  belongs  Childc  Har- 

1  N.  V.,  1825  (second  edition).  There  were  several  published  in  England:  "  The  Last 
Canto  of  the  Original  Don  Juan"  from  the  papers  of  the  Countess  Guiccioli,  London, 
18—;  Don  Juan,  Jr.,  a  poem  by  Byron's  ghost,  London,  1839;  Sequel  to  Don  Juan,  Lon- 
don, 1843  (second  edition).  Fourteen  stanzas  of  Byron's  own  continuation  are  now  first 
printed  in  E.  Hartley  Coleridge's  edition. 

-  In  The  Legend  of  the  Rocks  and  Other  Poems,  N.Y.,  1827:  the  title  piece  is  in 
Scott's  octosyllabics. 

3  Charleston,  S.C,  1832.    The  title  is  Byron  and  Scott. 


94  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

vard,1  "  a  romance  of  Cambridge,"  in  four  cantos  with 
stanzas  rhyming  ababcc.  It  was  evidently  done  by  a  col- 
lege senior  of  '48,  and  satirizes  rather  amusingly  Harvard's 
little  world  of  pedants,  professors  and  pupils.  Among  the 
interspersed  songs  are  burlesques  of  Longfellow.2  The 
lanthc*  of  Carlos  D.  Stuart  combines  in  octosyllabics  the 
Juan  pathetic  Haidee  episode  with  the  terror  and  darkness 
of  the  earlier  tales. 

But  by  far  the  most  marvelous  Byronic  production  has  yet 
to  be  named.  It  was  the  Gcraldine4  of  Rufus  Dawes,  one 
of  "that  constellation  of  poets  that  has  lately  risen  to  the 
view  of  the  American  people,  a  constellation  that  admits  a 
mild  and  lovely  light."5  From  the  publisher's  "Adver- 
tisement" we  learn  that  "the  Ms.  had  been  purchased, 
and  subscriptions  had  been  taken  with  flattering  success," 
though  the  plan  had  been  later  abandoned.  Poe  called  it 
"  most  inflated,  involved  and  falsely  figurative  " — he  might 
have  added  unwittingly  burlesque  and  melodramatic,  shame- 
lessly and  crudely  imitative.  There  is  hardly  one  popular 
passage  of  Don  Juan  or  Childe  Harold  that  has  not  helped 
to  furnish  out  Gcraldinc ;  hardly  an  idea,  a  sentiment, 
hardly  a  phrase,  even  to  the  jest 

"thine  incomparable  oil,  Macassar"6  — 

only  the  hopeless  inanity  of  the  plot  and  the  opinions  on 
Byron,  as  far  as  they  were  not  characteristic  of  the  times, 

1  By  Senor  Alguno  (Nathan  Ames),  Boston,  1848. 

2  As  "  To  a  Polywog  "  :  — 

"Thou  has  taught  me  what  a  lesson!  — 
That  like  thee,  I  too  must  press  on, 
While  my  bones  retain  their  flesh  on, 

Wiggle  waggle,  waggle  wiggle." 

»  N.Y.,  1843. 

*  Library  of  American  Poets,  N.Y.,  1839. 
"  Knapp,  Sketches  of  Public  Characters. 
,;  i.  17. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  95 

were  his  own.      Byron  was  "  self-abased,"  and  "the  prob- 
lem of  humanity ; "  and  Shelley  is  coupled  with  him  as 

"  Without  the  Palinurus  of  self-science  " 

embarking 

"  upon  the  stormy  sea." 

The  hero,  Waldron,  is  a  bourgeoise  Byron,  somewhat  like 

Neal's  Morton  — 

"  Midst  classic  lore 
His  mind  had  freely  wandered," 


and 
yet 


"  Reason  he  deemed  could  measure  everything," 

"the  stir 

And  boiling  eddies  of  uncalmed  desire 
Buoyed  up  his  swelling  breast." 

"And  now  he  recked  not  but  of  pleasure's  stream." 

Sated  he  sought  new  scenes  —  and  the  "maelstrom  of 
fashion  "  :  — 

"  Within  the  busy  vortex  Waldron  moved 
And  drugged  his  sense  of  woe." 

Meantime  his  newly  roused  love  for  Miss  Geraldine  is  only 
too  deeply  shared  by  one  Clifford  ;  and  this  emotional  com- 
plication produces  a  chain  of  circumstances,  ending  in  a 
ball,  with  Clifford  at  the  bottom  of  a  lake  and  Waldron  on 
his  way  to  join  the  Corsairs.  Geraldine  peeks  and  pines, 
her  father  takes  her  South,  on  the  way  their  ship  is  attacked 
by  Corsairs  and  wrecked,  and  Geraldine  and  her  father 
put  off  on  a  raft.  But  some  of  the  Corsairs  have  got 
astray,  too,  and  are  floating  about  in  the  longboat,  dying 
of  thirst  and  starvation  till  only  one  remains.  The  raft 
and  the  boat  meet,  of  course,  just  when 

"  The  moon  is  shining  full  upon  the  wave." 


96  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

Geraldine  lies  dead  in  her  father's  arms,  with  Waldron's 
picture  hanging  from  her  bosom.  The  sole  survivor  from 
the  longboat 

"wildly  flung 
His  arms  around  her  with  a  mad'ning  [sic]  throw, 
Then  plunged  within  the  cold  unfathomed  deep, 
While  sirens  sung  the  victim  to  his  sleep." 

Here  the  tale  ends  ;  what  became  of  the  father  we  are  not 
informed.  The  author  at  times  tried  consciously  to  be 
facetious  —  but  he  builded  better  than  he  knew,  as  this 
mixture  of  Don  Juan  and  the  dime  novel  may  attest. 

Arthur  Carry!,1  by  Laughton  Osburn,  though  —  or 
rather  because  —  far  more  respectable,  need  not  detain  us, 
except,  perhaps,  for  the  observation  that,  like  Willis' 
Lady  Jane,  it  purports  to  be  a  novel. 

The  Paradise  of  Fools,'1  on  the  other  hand,  is  strictly  a 
literary  satire  on  contemporary  America.  Though  it 
imitates  Don  Juan,  even  to  the  jokes,  calling,  for  example, 
freebooters  and  pirates  fishers  of  men,3  the  burlesque  situ- 
ations remind  us  more  of  The  Vision  of  Judgment  (as  the 
debate  over  the  candidate  for  admission  to  the  Paradise  and 
the  dull  bard  reading  his  poem  aloud  before  the  Court  till 
all  are  prostrated).  Of  the  authors  mentioned,  Willis  un- 
doubtedly fares  worst.  The  candidate  is  finally  refused 
admission —  for 

"  They  said  I  'd  have  to  read  what  W-ll-s  wrote 
.     .     .     .     before  I  could  be  fit 
Within  the  Paradise  of  Fools  to  sit." 

"  And  so  they  sent  me  back  upon  a  comet 
To  earth  to  study  well  '  The  Lady  Jane ' 
And  learn  to  be  a  perfect  ninny  from  it." 

1  N.Y.,  1841. 

2  Baltimore,  1841. 

3  Don  Juan,  ii,  125. 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  07 

It  is  a  comparatively  clever  jeu  cTesfirit,  whoever  the 
author. 

Brief  reference  may  be  made  to  John  A.  Shea,  author 

of  "  Adolph,"1  the  character  of  which  may  be  judged  from 

the  opening  lines  :  — 

"  Well  truth  is  strange,  aye  even  than  fiction  stranger." 2 

George  Rogers,3  a  renegade  Englishman,  celebrated  Wash- 
ington in  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  pages,  the  dignity  of 
his  theme  putting  a  curb  on  frivolity,  but  not  preventing 
excursions  into  contemporary  politics,  and  the  inevitable 
imitation  of  the  famous  "  'Tis  sweet."  We  have  also  Gaad- 
aloufie,*  "  a  tale  of  love  and  war,"  based  on  incidents  of  the 
Mexican  war,  with  much  familiar  digression,  its  anonymous 
author  going  out  of  his  way  to  villify  Wellington,  appar- 
ently merely  because  Byron  had  done  so.  The  Dutch 
Pilgrim  Fathers?  by  Edward  Hopper,  in  ottava  rima,  in 
intent  comic  rather  than  satiric  ;  and  The  Vision  of  Judg- 
ment* which  describes  some  obscure  church-squabbles 
in  three  cantos  of  very  close  imitation,  often  verbatim 
copying,  of  Byron's   Vision,  may  close  the  list. 

Legare  had  remarked  long  since,7  "Lord  Byron  witll 
his  Befipos  and  Juans  has  done  infinite  mischief  in  the 
rhyming  world.  Nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  rival  the  noble 
poet  in  his  slip-shod,  zig-zag,  desultory  style,  and  dog- 
gerel versification,  but  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to 
pour  out  with  such  perfect  nonchalance  strains  of  the  most 

1  In  Poems,  N.Y.,  1846. 

-  Cf.  Don  Juan,  xiv,  101. 

■'In  Democratic  Vistas,  N.Y.,  1849. 

*  Philadelphia,  1860. 

6  N.Y.,  1865. 

fi  R.  W.  Wright,  N.Y.,  1867. 

7  In  reviewing  Craft's  Writings  in  the  Southern  Review,  1829. 


98  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

beautiful  poetry  and  sallies  of  incomparable  wit.  The 
humor  of  a  man  of  genius,  however  eccentric  and  even 
extravagant,  is  one  thing,  and  the  buffoonery  of  an  awk- 
ward imitator  quite  another." 

When  Byron's  influence  waned,  the  same  change  of 
model  is,  of  course,  to  be  noticed  as  specified  in  the  last 
two  chapters.  The  situation  at  the  turn  of  the  sixties,  or 
thereabouts,  is  capitally  portrayed  in  Holmes'  Guardian 
Angel: —  "  He  [Gifted  Hopkins]  retired  pensive  from  this 
interview,  and  flinging  himself  at  his  desk,  attempted 
wreaking  his  thoughts  upon  expression,  to  borrow  the  lan- 
guage of  one  of  his  brother  bards,  in  a  passionate  lyric 
which  he  began  thus  :  — 

'  another's  ! 
Another's !   O  the  pang,  the  smart ! 
Fate  owes  to  love  a  deathless  grudge  — 
The  barbed  fang  has  rent  a  heart 

which  —  which  — 
Judge — judge,  no,  not  judge — budge,  drugge,  fudge  !  — 
.     .     .     .     all  up  for  to-night ! ' 


.  .  .  .  '  O  no,  Mr.  Hopkins,  pray  go  on,'  [he  is  reading 
his  verses]  said  Clement,  'I'm  very  fond  of  poetry.'  The 
poet  did  not  require  much  urging,  and  recited  :  — 

'  She  moves  in  splendor  like  the  ray 
That  flashes  from  unclouded  skies, 
And  all  the  charm  of  night  and  day 
Are  mingled  in  her  hair  and  eyes ! ' 

Clement  ....  said  the  stanzas  reminded  him  forcibly  of 
one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  century.  Gifted,  flushed 
hot  with  pleasure  .  .  .  .  '  Perhaps  you  will  like  these 
lines  still  better  ....  the  style  is  more  modern  :  — 


Byron's  Sub-Literary  Influence.  99 

'  O  daughter  of  the  spiced  South  ! 
Her  bubbly  grapes  have  spilled  the  wine 
That  stained  with  its  hue  divine 
The  red  flower  of  thy  perfect  mouth  '  — 

and  so  on  through  a  series  of  stanzas  like  these  with  the 
pulp  of  two  rhymes  between  the  upper  and  the  lower  crust 
of  two  others."  Gifted  Hopkins,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
drawn  from  life.1 

1  But  a  quotation  from  Goodrich's  Recollections  opened  this  chronicle,  and  it  is  fit- 
ting that  another  should  conclude  it :  "  At  the  present  day  the  flood  of  license  is  sub- 
siding. Byron  is  still  read,  but  his  immoralities,  his  atheism,  have  lost  their  relish,  and 
are  now  deemed  offenses  and  blemishes,  and  at  the  same  time  the  public  taste  is  direct- 
ing itself  in  favor  of  a  purer  and  more  exalted  moral  tone Longfellow,  Bryant 

and  Tennyson,  are  the  exponents  of  the  public  taste  in  poetry,  and  Hawthorne.  Dickens, 
Thackeray  in  romance." 


CHAPTER   VI. 

BYRON    IN  AMERICAN  CRITICISM. -Some  Explanation 
of  Byron's  American  Vogue. —  Conclusion. 

SUCH  in  brief  is  the  chronicle  of  Byronic  verse  in 
America.  Were  it  to  be  brought  down  to  the  present 
day,  very  few  names  of  sub-literary  writers  such  as  have 
just  been  dealt  with,  and  only  one  name,  Joaquin  Miller, 
of  equal  rank  with  those  earlier  writers  grouped  under 
Chapter  III,  could  be  added.  With  the  diffusion  of  a 
relatively  higher  culture  at  home,  and  the  rise  of  new 
poetic  tastes  in  England,  the  vogue  of  Byron  had  passed, 
and  that,  too,  before  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Stowe's 
charges,  which  in  popular  thought  are  supposed  to  have 
been  instrumental  in  checking  it.  Joaquin  Miller  is  the 
only  American  poet,  except  Halleck,  who  has  loved  Byron 
romantically  without  silliness.  Out  in  the  bay  of  San 
Francisco,  "  forever  green  in  its  crown  of  California  laurel, 
the  fairest  hands  of  the  youngest  and  fairest  city  of  the 
New  World  wove  a  wreath  of  bay  for  the  tomb  of  Byron," 
which  the  following  days  Miller  ''brought  over  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  the  seas  and  placed  above  the  dust  of  the 
soldier-poet."1  He  is  almost  the  only  American  poet,  ex- 
cept Halleck,  who  has  been  inspired  by  Byron  to  genuine 
poetic  achievement.  His  Californian?  an  Indian  tale  of 
revenge,  is  a  wild  gorgeous  Giaour  of  the  Sierras.  But 
Miller  stands  somewhat  apart  from  the  movement  we  have 
been  tracing. 

1  Prefatory  note  to  the  poem  "  Burns  and  Byron,"  Songs  of  the  Sierras,  1871. 

2  Songs  of  the  Sierras. 


Byron   in   American    Criticism.  101 

From  the  verse  which  records  this  movement,  it  may  be 
said  in  summary,  we  have  seen  the  influence  of  Byron's 
personality,  opinions  and  poetry  upon  a  somewhat  unso- 
phisticated and  crude  people.1  We  have  seen  the  Byron 
collar,  the  mysterious  mien,  imitated  in  person  or  on  paper  ; 
we  have  read  pessimistic  views  of  life  ;  we  have  seen  his 
elements  of  poetic  matter,  the  literary  satire  of  The  Eng- 
lish Bards,  the  wild  adventures  of  the  tales,  the  nature  and 
history  of  Childe  Harold,  the  solemn  isolation  and  com- 
munion of  Manfred,  the  love  and  despair  of  the  lyrics,  the 
social  satire  and  wit  of  Don  Juan  —  we  have  seen  all  these 
imitated  with  also  an  even  more  pronounced  imitation  of  the 
elements  of  poetic  manner,  the  rhythms,  the  rhymes,  the 
stanzas,  the  general  form  and  even  scattered  phrases.  In 
some  of  this  verse  we  have  read,  too,  the  views  of  the  op- 
position, with  direct  testimony  that  B}^ron  was  occupying 
a  deal  of  attention.  In  Chapter  II,  touching  Byron  in  the 
newspapers  and  magazines  to  the  time  of  his  death,  and 
in  occasional  quotations  and  foot-notes  of  the  succeeding 
chapters,  the  reader  will  have  noticed  also  some  prose 
criticism  ;  there  still  remains,  however,  somewhat  to  be  re- 
ported under  this  head. 

I. 

Byron's  death  occasioned  much  serious  criticism,  which 
continued  for  two  or  three  years  thereafter.  The  publi- 
cation of  Moore's  Life  and  Letters  in  1830-1  occasioned 
Macaulay's  brilliant  essay  in  England,  and  in  America  at 

1  The  crudity  of  American  intellectual  life  has  been  frequently  referred  to  in  these 
pages,  and  is  too  well  known  to  need  further  proof.  Yet  as  a  work  of  supererogation  I  may 
transcribe  another  word  from  Goodrich,  who  was  in  his  day  with  Griswold  in  the  forefront 
of  American  intellectual  enterprise.  He  gives  in  his  Recollections  elaborate  statistics  to 
show  the  increase  in  school-books,  from  an  aggregate  of  $2,500,000  in  1820,  to  $12,500,000  in 
1850,  and  adds  triumphantly,  "  Then,  I  ask,  have  we  not  a  literature?  "  "  We  produce  an- 
nually more  school-books  than  the  whole  continent  of  Europe."  Goodrich  has  recorded  also 
his  impressions  of  a  visit  to  Rome:-"  The  Forum,  the  Palace  of  theC;esars,  the  Coliseum, 
the  Baths  of  Caracalla  ....  display  the  actual  poverty  of  art,  for  there  is  not  one  of  them 
that  can  furnish  a  useful  suggestion  to  even  a  house-carpenter  ....  the  aqueducts  .... 
look  like  lines  of  marching  mastadons."    This  was  innocence  abroad,  indeed. 


102  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

least  one  critique  of  first-rate  ability,  that  of  Legare.  Lady 
Byron's  death  and  Mrs.  Stowe's  "vindication"  renewed 
the  old  discussion  of  Byron's  character,  but  resulted  in 
nothing,  I  believe,  on  his  writings,  except  disputes  as  to 
the  interpretation  of  some  passages  of  supposed  self-con- 
fession. Byron's  centenary1  yielded  a  rather  cold  essay 
by  Professor  Woodberry,  and  since  1898,  the  volumes  of 
Henley  and  of  Prothero  and  Coleridge  have  called  forth 
the  essays  of  Mr.  More  and  Professor  Trent,  already  re- 
ferred to.2 

The  first  extended  discussion  of  Byron's  completed 
achievement  appeared,  as  before  stated,  in  the  North 
American  Review,  shortly  after  his  death.  A  few  months 
later  appeared  there  a  discussion,  still  more  extended, 
which  was  immediately  honored  with  republication  in 
England  to  serve  as  an  antidote  to  the  evil  spirit  of  Byron- 
ism. It  was  written  by  Andrews  Norton,  and  remains  to 
this  day  among  the  more  independent  and  profitable, 
though  less  known,  studies  on  the  poet.  Norton  was  very 
conservative.  As  a  clergyman,  he  condemned,  naturally 
enough,  the  immorality  and  irreligion  both  of  Byron's  life 
and  of  his  writings ;  and  stripped  off  the  often  all  too  un- 
real romance  from  his  sorrows,  doubting  not,  however, 
that  he  suffered  from  a  gloomy  temperament  and  from  the 
depressing  physical  effect  of  his  vices,  but  this  was,  on 
the  whole,  "a  vulgar  misery;"  even  his  espousal  of  the 
Greek  cause  was  "theatrical."  The  critic  denied  the 
ideality  of  Byron's  great  poetry:  "It  is  the  poetry  of 
earth  only  where  it  is  not,  as  in  Cain,  the  poetry  of  hell." 

1  Scott's  centenary  was  celebrated  in  Boston  with  tributes  from  Holmes  and  Emerson. 

2  Professor  Biilbring  of  Bonn  told  me  the  renewed  interest  in  Byron  in  Germany  Uni- 
versity circles  was  due  chiefly  to  the  wealth  of  scholarly  material  in  the  edition  of  Prothero 
and  Coleridge.  Quite  noticeable  is  the  large  number  of  German  dissertations  for  the  doc- 
torate on  Byron  during  the  last  five  years. 


Byron   in  American    Criticism.  103 

This  poem,  with  Don  Juan,  was  "  a  course  of  writing 
which  left  nothing  to  be  hoped."  Norton  was  utterly 
oblivious  of  the  deep  spiritual  doubts  and  splendid  imagi- 
nation of  Cain,  which  made  it  on  the  one  hand  great  liter- 
ature, and  on  the  other  great  poetry  ;  in  Don  Juan  he  saw, 
like  Southey,  only  ribaldry,  buffoonery  and  blasphemy 
against  God  and  man,  but  felt  not,  as  did  such  a  healthy 
spirit  as  Scott,  its  abundance  of  observation  and  experi- 
ence, its  understanding  of  the  weaker  sides  of  humanity, 
its  sublime  irony,  its  jovial  laughter,  its  wealth  of  lan- 
guage, its  gayety,  its  pathos,  its  command  of  all  moods, 
which  make  it,  too,  great  literature  and  great  poetry.  In 
fact,  Don  Juan  has  seldom  been  understood  by  English- 
speaking  critics.  Byron's  popularity  he  assigned  —  and 
in  part  justly  —  to  his  being  en  rapport  with  his  times.  In 
such  observations  there  was  nothing  unusual  or  extra- 
ordinary ;  but  Norton  undertook  a  purely  aesthetic  judg- 
ment, which  yielded  an  almost  equally  negative  result. 
Because  Byron,  the  man,  he  contended,  had  no  fixed  prin- 
ciples of  belief  or  of  action,  Byron,  the  poet,  was  not 
"  in  real  harmony  of  mind  wTith  the  works  of  nature  ;  "  his 
artistic  defects  sprang  in  the  main  from  an  unsound  moral 
fibre  ; x  thus  much  of  his  most  admired  work  was  forced 
exaggeration  and  "factitious  sentiment;"  he  was  success- 
ful and  sincere  only  when  describing  moods  of  nature, 
gloomy  like  himself,  where  "  his  intense  egotism  made  him 
a  poet."  Some  passages  in  Childe  Harold  are  examined 
in  detail  from  this  standpoint.  Norton  is  subtle  ;  and  many 
thoughtful  persons,  who  hold  that  great  art  is  only  possible 
with  great  character,  would  agree  with  him,  without  stop- 
ping to  examine  where  his  subtlety  leads  to  the  exploiting 

1  He  anticipates  the  more  brilliant  utterance  of  Cardinal  Newman,  who  in  his  Essay  on 

Poetry,  applies  the  same  reasoning  to  the  same  poet. 


104  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

of  mere  idiosyncracies  of  taste,  or  involves  a  failure  to 
perceive  that  the  momentary  heat  of  imagination  and  emo- 
tion in  a  creative  genius  is  itself  sincerity. 

Hugh  Swinton  Legare,  one  of  the  most,  perhaps  the 
most,  accomplished  of  Southern  gentlemen1  before  the 
Civil  War,  published  two  extensive  articles  in  his  Southern 
Review?  as  the  two  volumes  by  Moore  were  reprinted  in 
America,  on  "  Byron's  Character  and  Writings."  In  those 
days  Byron,  the  man,  offered  the  critic  as  many,  if  not 
more  interesting,  problems  as  Byron,  the  poet.  Legare, 
with  the  chivalry  of  his  race,  defended  Byron's  mother  and 
wife,  and  condemned  the  poet  as  most  unfilial  and  unux- 
orious.  He  contrasted  Byron  with  Scott:  —  "  Never  did 
two  such  men  —  competitors  in  the  highest  walks  of  cre- 
ative imagination  and  deep  pathos  —  present  such  a  strange 
antithesis  of  moral  character,  domestic  habits  and  pursuits, 
as  Walter  Scott  at  home  and  Lord  Byron  abroad."  Of 
Don  Juan  he  remarked  :  —  "In  writing  Don  Juan  Byron 
renounced  —  renounced  with  foul  scorn  and  beyond  all 
hope  of  recovery  —  the  sympathies  of  mankind  ....  the 
wanton,  gross  and  often  dull  and  feeble  ribaldry  of  some 
of  his  latest  productions,  broke  the  spell  which  he  had  laid 
upon  our  souls."  Here  the  Southern  litterateur  and  the 
New  England  clergyman  are  strangely  in  accord.  The 
spell  had  controlled  Legare  "  less  than  two  lustres  ago," 
and  then  Legare  "  could  never  think  of  him  but  as  an 
ideal  being."  It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  to-day  with  what 
a  shock  of  disenchantment  Don  Juan  affected  the  more 
idealistic  of  Byron's  admirers ;  they  felt  as  if  they  had 
been  grievously  imposed  upon,  and  cheated  of  their  gen- 
erous enthusiasm  and  sympathy.8  Legare  found  the  main- 

1  For  Poe  was  hardly  a  Southerner,  and  Simms  was  not  notably  accomplished. 

2  See  Writings  of  Legare\  2  vols.,  Charleston,  1845. 

3  See  even  the  Edinburgh  Review,  especially  the  first  article  on  Don  Jzian. 


Byron   in  American    Criticism.  105 

spring  of  Byron's  character  and  writings  to  have  been 
dcbellare  suftcrbos,  and  his  chief  peculiarity — he  does  not 
say  defect — as  a  poet,  in  his  similes:  "Instead  of  draw- 
ing his  similes  from  the  natural  world  to  the  moral,  as  the 
ancients  uniformly  did,  he  does  just  the  reverse.  Thus  a 
'lake'  is  'calm  as  cherished  hate,'  Zuleika  was  'soft  as 
the  memory  of  buried  love.'"  ....  "Manfred  as  a 
whole  is  his  masterpiece." 

Rev.  W.  B.  O.  Peabody  reviewed  Moore  in  the  North 
American  Review?  but  voiced  only  current  opinions.  He 
reprehended  Moore  for  linking  unhappiness  and  genius 
together ;  Byron's  moral  defects  could  not  be  palliated  on 
that  score.  The  tales  were  "shocking  to  probability;" 
and  "Childe  Harold  was  his  most  important  work,  and  on 
this  and  his  lyrical  poems  his  fame  must  ultimately  de- 
pend." There  is  no  mention  of  Don  Juan.  Peabody,  in 
another  article  in  the  North  American  Review'1  on  "  Eng- 
lish Poetry  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  thought  "the 
perversion  of  Byron's  genius  scarcely  inferior  to  that  of 
his  moral  powers." 

E.  P.  Whipple  discussed  "The  Characteristics  of  Lord 
Byron"  in  the  same  i?w/r^  for  z845.  Byron  was  "the 
mouthpiece  of  the  harsher  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  time  :  " 
and  a  man  of  whom  "it  may  almost  be  said  he  had  no 
character  at  all."  Whipple  also  entirely  misunderstood 
Don  Juan,  and  in  rebuking  "  the  scoffing  demon  of  his 
wit"  he  quoted  the  whimsical  and  charming  verses  (ii,  144) 
where  Haidee  leaning  over  young  Juan  in  the  cave, 

"  drew  out  her  provisions  from  the  basket '" :; 

as  degrading  to  poetry. 

1  See  Literary  Remains,  Boston,  1850. 

2  Vol.  1,  p.  494. 

3  ii.,  144. 


106  Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 

11  Byron  and  his  Contemporaries,"  by  H.  J.  Brent,  in 
his  National  Magazine  for  1839,  illustrates  the  fulsome 
and  undiscerning  adulation  of  some  minor  critics.  It  was 
Byron's  romantic  life  that  appealed  most  to  him,  and  he 
sided  with  Byron  against  his  wife  and  the  public.  The 
criticism  of  his  poetry  is  askew.  He  calls,  as  some  Ger- 
man philologians  have  called,  Childc  Harold  an  epic,  and 
says  "  Byron  is  classical  —  all  his  poetry  is  of  the  Grecian 
order  —  it  is  the  verse  that  we  might  suppose  some  Athe- 
nian of  the  Platonic  era  would  have  written  beneath  the 
groves  of  Academe."  There  was  a  classical  element  in 
Byron's  imagination,  in  the  distinctness  of  his  metaphors 
and  in  the  simplicity  and  scope  of  his  designs,  but  Mr. 
Brent  evidently  meant  something  very  different.  And 
wishing  to  compare  Byron  with  the  world's  greatest  painter 
he  hit  on — Salvator  Rosa. 

In  The  Mirror  for  1837,  another  minor  critic,  William 
Cox,  taking  offense  at  some  strictures  "in  a  few  back 
numbers  "  of  that  once  popular  journal,  defended  Byron 
against  "the  charges  usually  brought  against  his  poetry, 
on  three  counts  :  "  firstly,  his  skepticism  was  not  proselyt- 
ing;  secondly,  his  licentiousness  was  confined  to  Don 
Juan,  and  never  as  atrocious  as  a  certain  scene  in  the 
highly  respected  Seasons;  and  thirdly,  his  disreputable 
heroes  always  come  to  a  bad  end. 

The  Transcendentalists  would  none  of  Byron  ;  Emerson 
in  the  Preface  to  Parnassus,  half  admiring  a  rhyming 
facility  which  he  possessed  not  himself,  conceived  Byron's 
lack  of  any  aim  a  fundamental  limitation.  Margaret  Ful- 
ler believed  "his  poems  have  done  their  work,  and  are 
beginning  to  find  their  proper  level  ....  posterity  will 
assign  him  an  obscure  place."  Wordsworth,  to  whom  she 
gives  the  most  space  in  her  list  of  poetic  judgments,  was 


Byron   in  American    Criticism.  107 

"the  greatest  poet  of  the  day."1  That  the  serene  singer 
of  the  inner  life  and  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land  should  have  spoken  more  intelligibly  and  beautifully 
to  this  band  of  high,  quiet  souls,  living  with  the  Immanent 
on  New  England  hills  and  meadows,  than  the  passionate 
spirit  crying  in  the  night  for  a  light  beyond  him,  or  pass- 
ing feverishly  over  old  cities  of  ruin  and  modern  society, 
with  its  complex  contradictions  of  high  and  low,  was,  of 
course,  only  inevitable. 

Yet  if,  according  to  Margaret  Fuller,  Byron's  poems 
were  finding  "  their  proper  level,"  according  to  Henry  T. 
Tuckerman,  about  the  same  time,  "  Three  thousand  copies 
of  Byron's  poems  were  sold  annually  in  this  country." 
Tuckerman's  essay2  is  characterized  by  sense  and  insight. 
The  analysis  of  Byron's  character,  his  foibles,  his  vices, 
his  inconsistencies,  his  generosity,  his  frankness,  the  part 
played  by  heredity  and  environment,  while  not  profound, 
marks  a  change  in  the  critical  spirit.  He  saw  truly  that 
"  there  is  a  vast  deal  of  cant  in  much  that  is  said  of  the 
moral  perversion  of  the  poet,"  and  strove  to  counteract  it. 
Of  Byron's  poetry  he  wrote,  it  seems  with  some  degree  of 
originality  and  truth  :  — "  Byron  represents  an  actual  phase 
of  the  soul's  life ;  not  its  whole  nor  its  highest  experience, 
but  still  a  real  and  most  interesting  portion  of  its  develop- 
ment       In   many  a  youthful   heart   do   his   truest 

appeals  find  an  immediate  response How  much  of 

lofty  promise  in  the  very  discontent  he  utters  ....  how 
often  does  it  reveal  an  infinite  necessity  for  love,  an  eternal 
tendency  to  progress  ....  and  the  eloquent  complaints 
of  Byron  have  brought  home  to  countless  hearts  a  deeper 
conviction  of  the  absolute  need  of  truth  and  self-respect 

1  Papers  on  Literature  and  Art,  London,  1846. 

2  In  Thoughts  on  the  Poets,  London,  1850. 


io8 


Byron  and  Byronism  in  America. 


than  any  logical  argument If  a  few  shallow  imitators 

are  silly  enough  to  turn  down  their  collars  and  drink  gin, 
there  is  another  class  who  mentally  exclaim  as  they  read 
Byron  — '  What  infinite  longings  are  these,  what  sensi- 
bility to  beauty,  what  capacities  of  suffering  !  " 

Later  criticism  has  dealt  more  and  more  leniently  with  By- 
ron's woeful  shortcomings  as  a  man,  or  sunk  them  altogether 
in  a  consideration  of  his  poetry.  Again,  the  "  atheism"  in 
his  poetry  —  about  as  real  as  that  of  The  Book  of  Job  —  and 
its  immoralities,  which  cannot  be  so  easily  defended,  have 
long  since  ceased  to  be  an  important  issue  with  critics. 

But  in  no  American  criticism,  except  in  the  brief  and 
crude  observations  of  Goodrich,  is  there  any  attempt  to 
explain  Byron's  vogue  in  America,  as  in  any  way  of  the 
country  and  not  altogether  of  the  age.  It  is  doubtful  if 
even  an  acute  observer  could  then  have  seen  our  literary 
conditions  in  the  broad  way  to-day  quite  possible  even  to 
the  most  ordinary  mind  acquainted  with  the  facts.  There 
were  many  in  those  days  who  realized  "  the  difficulties  of  a 
national  literature  :  "  the  need  of  copyright,  the  provincial 
reverence  for  any  English  book,  however  mean,  the  lack  of 
an  intellectual  centre  like  London  or  Paris,  the  incompe- 
tence of  minor  criticism  and  the  American  versatility,  which 
conceived  itself,  because  apt  in  politics,  stump-speaking, 
carpentry,  plumbing,  boat-making,  distilling  and  extem- 
pore praying,  therefore  equally  apt  to  "turn  off  in 
leisure  moments  "  an  Indian  Epic  of  six  cantos  after  Scott 
or  Byron,  a  quarto  of  songs  like  Moore's,  or  a  string  of 
Byronic  Spenserians.1     Edward  Everett,  Verplanck,  Hal- 

1  This  complacent  versatility  was  most  crude  in  the  West,  which  by  the  forties  was  as 
much  irritated  by  the  relative  superiority  of  what  it  was  pleased  to  call  "  The  cheap  Atlan- 
tic retailers  in  literature"  (Western  Monthly  Magazine} ,  as  the  East  had  been  irritated, 
scarcely  a  generation  before,  by  the  infinite  superiority  of  what  it  was  sometimes  pleased  to 
call  "the  loathsome  filth  of  Scotch  reviewers1'  and  "Lord  Byron's  mercenary  critics." 
This  Western  Monthly  Magazine  (Louisville  and  Cincinnati)  proclaimed  in  the  April  num- 
ber of  1837,  "  Notwithstanding  the  devotion  of  Ohio  to  pork,  railroads  and  banks,  and  of 
Kentucky  to  tobacco,  hemp  and  stock,  we  are  doing  a  pretty  fair  business  out  here  in  the 
literary  line." 


Byron   in  American    Criticism.  109 

leek,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Timothy  Flint,  Willis,  Cornelius 
Mathews,  Poe,  and  many  another  reiterated  these  limita- 
tions again  and  again.  But  the  more  far-reaching  limita- 
tions, the  defective  imaginative  background  of  a  long  past, 
colored  rich  with  multifarious  life  on  coast  and  plain  and 
mountain,  the  defective  national  experience,  the  only  just 
born  national  character,  and  the  natural  absorption  of  the 
energies  of  a  new  people  of  a  new  land  in  felling  forests, 
in  laying  out  acres,  in  building  wharves  and  warehouses, 
have  been,  I  believe,  first  realized  and  formulated  since 
they  have  been  to  some  degree  overcome.  So  with  the 
vogue  of  Byron.  Critics  seem  to  have  seen  in  it  no  more 
than  the  spirit  of  the  times  and  the  silliness  of  mankind. 
To-day,  when  one  has  followed  it  down  two  generations, 
when  one  has  followed  too,  the  obscure  ins  and  outs  of 
thousands  of  old  newspapers,  magazines  and  pamphlets, 
and  hundreds  of  old  books  in  prose  and  verse,  recording 
the  general  intellectual  conditions,  one  can  judge  with 
more  discrimination. 

II. 

Yet  one  must  not  forget  or  disregard  the  universal  in 
time  or  in  humanity  for  the  sake  of  establishing  a  particu- 
lar thesis.  Byron's  vogue  had  much  in  common,  as  al- 
ready admitted,  with  his  vogue  elsewhere  ;  it  is,  indeed,  in 
part  to  be  explained  on  the  one  hand  by  the  spirit  of  those 
times  which  were  restless,  stormy  and  gloomy,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  silliness  of  humanity  which  in  every  age  will 
imitate  a  great  leader,  especially  when  there  are  in  him 
the  attractions  of  beauty  and  romance,  or  any  suggestion 
of  eccentricity.1 

1  Did  not  the  silly  Roman  advocates  walk  about  the  Forum  with  necks  awry,  because 
Cicero's  wen  made  Cicero  walk  so?  And  have  not  most  German  officers  and  German  corps 
students  to-day  an  "  es-ist-erreicht  "  moustache  because  the  Kaiser  has  chosen  to  wear  one? 


no 


Byron  and  Byronism  in   America. 


The  spirit  of  the  times  on  the  Continent,  to  some  extent 
in  England,  was,  as  before  observed,  quite  the  reverse  of 
that  in  America.  Yet  America,  though  herself  in  the  very 
era  of  new-found  strength  and  good  feeling,  was  keenly 
alive  to  Continental  thought ;  and  something  of  the  Conti- 
nental mood  tinged  her  intellectual  life.  The  French 
Revolution  had  its  American  supporters,  and  there  was  a 
bond  of  union  in  Lafayette  ;  French  infidelity  —  one  needs 
but  to  recall  Thomas  Paine  —  had  spread  among  us,  and 
even  in  such  a  staid  institution  as  Yale,  under  the  staid 
Timothy  Dvvight,  existed  free-thinking  societies  whose 
members  abandoned  their  own  Christian  names  to  mas- 
querade about  the  campus  as  Diderots  and  Voltaires  ;  the 
Napoleonic  wars  were  duly  reported  in  the  papers ;  Na- 
poleon had  his  American  enemies  and  his  champions,  as 
the  readers  of  John  S.  C.  Abbot  well  know;  the  Greek 
struggle  occupied  Daniel  Webster  in  the  Senate.  Though 
America  could  not  feel  with  the  living  experience  of  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  Russia,  and  Byron  as  an  incarna- 
tion of  the  Time-Spirit  {Zeitgeist)  could  not  in  consequence 
be  an  inspiration  to  any  sincere  American  poet,  living  the 
life  of  his  country,  yet  America  possessed  fully  and  under- 
stood not  unsympathetically  the  main  facts  necessary  to 
the  interpretation  of  this  Byron  of  the  Time-Spirit. 

And  the  vogue  of  Byron  in  America  depended  in  some 
measure  also  on  the  same  literary  conditions  as  in  England. 
The  literary  past  of  England  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
literary  possession  of  America.  Byron's  contemporary 
success  and  fame  in  England,  as  opposed  to  the  contempo- 
rary failure  and  obscurity  of  Wordsworth  and  Keats,  lay 
not  a  little  in  his  literary  conservatism.  He  is  much  less 
revolutionary  than  is  popularly  supposed.  He  followed 
directly  on  Gifford  in  literary  satire  ;   he  adopted  the  Spen- 


Explanation  of  Byron's    Vogue.  in 

serian  of  Beattie1  and  Campbell  and  the  octosyllabics  of 
Scott.  The  melancholy  had  traits  in  common  with  that 
of  the  "  Grave-Yard  School,"  and  sadness  had  been 
cultivated  by  the  Sentimentalists  :  his  mysterious  heroes 
with  much  of  their  equipage  were  already  fore-shad- 
owed in  the  Tales  of  Horror  of  Radcliffe,  Lewis,  and 
Maturin  ;  his  didacticism  was  far  more  in  the  spirit  of  the 
past  than  of  the  future  ;  something  of  his  nature  mood  was 
already  familiar  in  Rosseau  and  Chateaubriand  ;  and  his 
irreligion  never  shook  itself  quite  free  from  Calvinism. 
His  Don  Juan  was  in  part  a  parody  on  the  styles  of  poet- 
ry he  had  himself  made  only  more  popular ;  and  it  was 
written  in  a  verse  for  which  the  public  had  just  been  prepared 
by  Frere's  "  Whistlecrafts."  Yet  only  the  most  superficial 
judgment  could  deny  Byron  creative  power  on  this  score, 
nor  was  his  poetry  merely  the  fostering  of  fashions.  He 
stood  to  the  lyric  poetry  of  his  age  —  employing  the  word 
in  its  broadest  sense  for  all  subjective  poetry  —  as  Shake- 
speare had  stood  to  the  dramatic  poetry  of  Elizabethan 
times.  It  may  be  that  the  greatest  poets  always  make  in 
this  way  increment  of  the  past  and  present.  What  of  new 
he  added  was  that  inexpressible  something  pre-eminent 
which  made  it  possible  for  him  to  crystalize  into  poetry, 
not  only  the  spirit  of  the  times  in  life  and  politics,  but  its 
spirit  in  literature  as  well.  But  this  point  is  touched  on 
not  to  eulogize  Byron,  rather  to  point  out  its  significance 
for  America.  Our  fathers  had  the  literary  key  to  Byron, 
at  a  time,  when,  as  in  England,  Wordsworth  was  caviare 
to  the  general  and  critic  alike,  and  Keats  was  a  cockney- 
mannikin,  and  neither  would  ever  do. 

These  facts  aside,  the  silliness  of  humanity  must  have 
been  one  factor,  if  not  in  the  admiration,  at   least   in   the 

1  Childe  Harold,  i-ii,  has  some  marked  similarities  with  The  Minstrel. 


112 


Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 


imitation  of  Byron.  For  that  many  good  people  could 
read  poetry  with  more  intellect  and  feeling  than  they 
could  write  it,  and  that  the  intensity  of  Byron's  real  spell 
cannot  be  measured  by  the  flabbiness  of  most  imitators, 
it  can  be  taken  for  granted.  But  let  us  look  a  little 
closer. 

Scientific  certainty  is  almost  impossible  in  the  literary 
biography  of  an  individual  ;  much  more  so  in  a  chapter, 
however  brief  and  simple,  in  the  literary  biography  of  a 
nation.  It  is  even  impossible  to  determine  surely  in  what 
section  of  the  country  or  at  what  date  Byron  was  most  pop- 
ular. Authors  writing  in  one  place  seem  frequently  to 
have  published  in  quite  another,  and  the  date  of  publica- 
tion may  not  have  corresponded  by  a  decade  or  so  to  the 
date  of  composition.  Possibly,  gloomy  moralizings  in  Spen- 
serians  predominated  in  New  England,  flseudo  Don  Juans 
in  and  about  New  York,  literary  satire  in  Philadelphia, 
tales  in  the  West  and  South  ;  this  would  correspond,  more- 
over, fairly  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  respective  districts. 
After  Byron's  death,  when  the  furore  manifestly  subsided, 
the  dates  of  Halleck's  edition  (1835-7)  may  denote  the 
high-water  mark  of  popularity.  Still  more  when  dealing 
with  causes  must  one  rely  on  impression  and  insight. 
Byron's  effect  on  America  may  perhaps  be  best  understood 
with  reference  to  his  well-known  effect  on  the  young. 
What  is  meant  by  this,  a  moment's  reflection  will  make 
clear. 

The  ethical  sense  of  the  individual  precedes  in  develop- 
ment the  aesthetic  sense ;  the  boy  admires  high  words  and 
deeds,  and  the  ringing  verse  that  has  moral  strength, 
rather  than  sensuous  beauty  ;  he  admires,  in  other  words, 
the  biography  and  history  of  great  achievement,  loathes  the 
base,  and  sympathizes  with  defeat  and  ruin.      And  his  lit- 


Explanation  of  Byron's   Vogue.  113 

erary  delight  is  eloquence  —  always  in  its  essence  ethical. 
He  can  recite  with  power  "The  Isles  of  Greece;"  but  he 
can  see  nothing  in  "  An  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn."  More- 
over, his  ethical  ideals  are  grand  rather  than  subtle  or 
simple.  America  before  the  Civil  War,  with  her  Wash- 
ington, her  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  moral 
foundations  of  the  Republic  forever  in  her  mind's  eye, 
with  her  race  of  orators  in  the  Senate,  in  the  House,  in  the 
pulpit  and  on  the  village  green,  with  her  frame  school- 
houses  and  shabby  board  walks,  with  her  Ionic  porticos  of 
granite  or  gray-sanded  wooden  props,  had  a  far  higher 
ethical  than  aesthetic  life.  Now,  Byron,  more  than  any  1 
contemporary,  had  the  grand,  eloquent  ethical  note.  | 

And  just  as  the  young  by  that  temporary  perversion  of 
the  moral  life,  which  is  almost  sure  to  follow  awakened 
self-consciousness,  find  something  manly  in  swearing  or 
smoking  a  cigarette,  so  at  times,  it  seems,  the  unsophisti- 
cated American  of  the  earlier  days  found  something  pecul- 
iarly fascinating  in  Byron's  perversities.  Yet  it  may  be 
apropos  here  to  remark  that  the  sexual  immorality  in  Byron's 
poetry  is  not  at  all  the  prime  source  of  his  effect  on  youth. 
It  serves  to  stimulate  curiosity,  especially  if  the  school- 
ma'am  sounds  a  warning  ;  but  the  real  fascination,  if  the 
explanation  I  am  here  giving  be  correct,  is  quite  different. 
Nor  was  it  an  important  source  either  of  his  earlier  popu- 
larity or  of  his  later  decline  in  America. 

Just  as  the  young  have  a  romantic  craving  for  what  is 
most  remote  from  their  own  experience,  be  it  for  daggers, 
murders,  pirates,  treasure-trove,  cowboys  or  castles  ;  so 
America,  inexperienced  and  prosaic  in  spite  of  explora- 
tions, settlements,  Rocky  Mountains,  a  war  or  two  and  a 
beautiful  banner  in  the  blue  sky,  seems  to  have  felt  a 
peculiar  charm  in  the  East,  and  in  the  bizarre  performances 


i  H_  Byron   and  Byronism  in  America. 

of  Bvron's  heroes  and  of  Byron  himself,  even  as  to  this 
day  her  religious  bodies  are  more  interested  in  foreign 
than  in  domestic  missions. 

Again,  the  boy  is  undoubtedly  drawn  to  Byron  not  a  . 
little  by  the  force  and  sweep  and  untrained  will  of  his 
utterance ;  Byron  had  the  rapidity  and  the  recklessness 
which  the  reading  boy  often  most  delights  in,  as  voicing 
himself.  It  may  not  be  a  mere  fanciful  analogy  to  sug- 
gest that  this  element  in  Byron  may  have  had  a  peculiar 
power  over  the  force  and  sweep  and  untrained  will  of  the 
young  nation.  But  this  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
Titanic  power  of  his  revolt  and  "impatient  democracy" 
over  contemporary  nations  and  conditions  in  Europe. 

These  brief  considerations  concern  in  part  simply  the 
readers  of  Byron.  He  made  imitators  also  by  his  appeal 
to  self-consciousness.  The  normal  boy  feels  a  kinship 
with  Byron's  greater  spirit,  with  Byron's  aggressive  egotism 
and  pride,  and  often  with  his  melancholy  and  revolt ;  not 
because  of  deep  conflicts  and  afflictions  in  real  life,  but 
because  he  is  in  the  confused  transitional  stage  between 
existence  as  a  matter  of  course  and  his  own  existence,  half 
recognized  as  personality.  He  is  over-conscious  of  him- 
self, and  blushes  when  his  mother  introduces  him  to  the 
new  minister.  He  reads  Byron  (in  secret)  and,  if  he  be 
ambitious  and  conceited,  two  traits  presumably  at  their 
acme  in  this  period  of  his  life,  he  will  imitate  Byron. 
Most  of  our  imitators,  though  elder  in  years,  were,  as 
writers,  in  this  self-conscious  state.  They  were  conceited 
in  provincial  inexperience,  and  ambitious  to  achieve  be- 
yond their  power ;  while  the  country  at  large  was  in  the 
most  self-conscious  period  of  its  development  (as  shown 
not  more  bv  its  boastfulness  than  by  its  sensitiveness  to 
criticism  and  by  the  general  decision  in  favor  of  a  national 


Explanation  of  Byron's   Vogue.  115 

literature).  Byron,  not  only  the  great  exponent  of  per- 
sonality, but  the  most  self-conscious,  was  thus,  the  one 
contemporary  English  poet  —  as  before  hinted  but  as  now 
quite  manifest  by  virtue  of  the  verse  we  have  just  left  behind 
us  —  most  attractive  as  a  model  when  literary  perfection 
was  still  quite  generally  aimed  at  by  copying  English  poets. 
Another  reason,  so  obvious  that  one  is  in  danger  of 
missing  it  altogether,  is  this :  the  very  obviousness  of 
Byron  himself.  Excepting  passages  in  Childe  Harold,  iii 
and  iv,  Byron  is  one  of  the  most  intelligible  and  straight- 
forward of  poets.  Subjective  poetry,  broadly  speaking,  is 
either  symbolic  or  direct.  A  subjective  poet  may  express 
himself,  his  moods  or  opinions,  in  terms  of  dramatic 
monologue,  as  at  times  did  Browning,  or  through  some 
aspect  of  nature,  as  did  Shelley  in  "  The  Cloud,"  and  the 
"  Ode  to  the  West  Wind."  But  Byron  spoke  in  his  own 
person.  He  was  often  so  controlled  by  the  emotions 
that  seized  him  that,  as  in  the  "  Fare  Thee  Well,"  the  pas- 
sionate but  unadorned  statement  of  immediate  fact  was 
sufficient  to  poetry.  If  this  be  a  fault  of  relative  mediocrity, 
others  may  decide  ;  it  was,  at  all  events,  a  snare  and  a 
delusion  for  his  imitators.  Such  work  looks  so  simple  — 
a  pen  and  paper  and  presto  !  —  a  Byronic  lyric,  just  as  clear 
and  as  well  rhymed  (on  comparison)  as  any  of  Byron's. 
Even  the  most  callow  imitator  of  Keat's  "  Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn  "  cannot  but  see  or  feel  that  he  has  missed  the  color 
and  delicacy  of  his  model ;  but  only  a  mature  mind  pos- 
sesses the  spiritual  balance  and  insight  to  distinguish,  in 
the  issue,  between  what  is  simple,  direct  and  vital  and 
what  is  but  jejune  imitation,  especially  if  the  latter  hap- 
pens to  be  its  own  production.  The  real  mastercraft  in 
the  nonchalant  ease  and  colloquiality  of  Don  Juan  was 
in  the  same  way,  as  observed  by  Legare,  all  too  little  ap- 


n6  By 7' on  and  Byronism  in  America. 

predated.  Then,  too,  Byron  is  himself  often  slip-shod 
and  crude,  and  many  undoubtedly  supposed,  like  any  boy- 
ish imitator  at  his  desk  to-day,  that,  because  they  could  suc- 
ceed in  copying  Byron's  defects,  they  had  rivalled  his 
merits. 

Byron's  relation  to  the  then  current  homely  sentimental 
verse  of  which  "The  Old  Oaken  Bucket"  is  typical,  and 
to  the  equally  current  "  prettily  sentimental"  with  its  con- 
ventional "  Lines  on  Baby's  Pink  Slippers,"  "  Stanzas  to 
a  Lady  in  the  Casement,  Plucking  Honeysuckle,"  etc., 
it  is  hard  to  determine.  Such  verse  corresponds  directly 
to  nothing  in  Byron,  to  little  in  Moore  ;  yet  the  influence 
of  both  may  be  suspected,  and,  as  Byron  was  the  more 
dominant  spirit,  his  influence  may  have  been  the  more 
fundamental,  and  similar  to  that  which  he  exercised,  ac- 
cording to  the  critic,1  on  the  English  lady  L.  E.L.,  namely, 
in  heightening  "the  romantic  tone  and  native  sentimen- 
tality." It  is  the  sentimentality  of  the  era  of  Byron  without 
its  masculine  vigor  and  largeness,  trivialized  by  poverty 
of  imagination  and  that  self-conscious  straining  after  un- 
usual poetic  themes  which  so  often  goes  with  it.  Wordsworth 
undoubtedly  influenced  many  in  the  choice  of  homely 
themes,  and  some  of  Woodworth's  songs  were  once  popu- 
larly attributed  to  Wordsworth  ; 2  Mrs.  Hemans  and  L.E.L. 
influenced  many  in  the  choice  of  "  pretty"  ones.  This  phase 
of  our  verse  is,  however,  a  topic  for  special  investigation. 

Byron's  position  in  America  to-day  was  referred  to  in 
the  opening  paragraph.  A  reaction  from  extraordinary 
and  somewhat  meretricious  fame  has  brought  to  the  poet 
years  of  extraordinary   and    decidedly  irrational   neglect 

1  George  Saintsbury  in  History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature. 

-  "  From  the  newspapers  of  England  they  were  recopied  in  the  United  States  as  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  great  lake  poet."  Introduction  to  The  Poems  of  Samuel  Wood-worth,  2 
vols.,  N.Y.,  1861,  edited  by  his  son. 


Conclusion.  117 

among  those  who  speak  his  land's  language.  The  Caro- 
linian Age  of  the  Restoration,  with  its  ideals  of  good 
breeding  and  correct  taste  in  literature,  did  not  always 
understand  the  infinite  variety  and  power  of  Shakespeare  ; 
the  latter  Victorian  Age,  in  both  England  and  America, 
with  its  ideals  of  sensuous  beauty  and  artistic  finish  or 
spiritual  suggestiveness  in  literature,  has  refused  always 
to  understand  the  infinite  personality  and  power  of  Byron. 
If  Byron  was  once  a  fad,  anti-Byron  is  somewhat  a  fad 
to-day.  To  admire  Byron  to-day  argues  a  coarse  insensi- 
bility to  the  fine  lines,  to  the  delicate  lights  and  shadows, 
to  the  overtones  of  poetry,  or  to  the  deep  spiritual  problems 
which  /f«  (or  enfiii)  de  Steele  poetry  settles  or  illuminates. 
Byron  is  a  barbarian  who  uses  bad  grammar  and  makes 
hobbling  iambics ;  Byron  has  no  philosophy ;  Byron  is  a 
poet  for  lawyers  and  bartenders.  This  is  very  like  the 
cant  that  has  been  so  summary  with  his  morals  and  irre- 
ligion.  Whether  there  be  as  many  single  lines  of  ultimate 
poetic  charm  in  Byron  as  in  Keats  or  Tennyson,  or  whether 
his  philosophy  of  life  1  be  as  profound  and  as  satisfying  as 
Wordsworth's  or  Browning's  may  be  doubted  ;  but  Byron 
recorded —  and  recorded  to  the  full  —  fifteen  years  of  one 
of  the  most  intense  in  passion  and  in  thought  of  all  human 
lives,  a  life  lived  in  a  tremendous  epoch,  near  the  world's 
noblest  mountains  and  streams,  in  the  midst  of  her  fairest 
cities,  a  life  echoing  in  its  depths  the  xaW€  ^s !  of  the  Greek 
and  the  mehr  Licht!  of  the  German  :  let  us  keep  the  record. 

1  This  has  been  carefully  examined.    See  Lord  Byron's  Weltanschauung,  J.   O.  E. 
Donner,  Helsingfors,  1897. 


APPENDIX 


The  earlier  American  editions  of  Byron,  in  the  libraries 
consulted,  are  given  in  the  following  list :  ' 

1811,  English  Bards,2  Charleston,  S.C.  1812,  Childe  Harold, 
i-ii,  Phil.  18 13,  Giaour,  Phil.  18 13,  Giaour,  Boston.  18 14, 
Bride  of  Abydos,  Boston.  181 4,  Bride  of  Abydos,  Phil.  1814, 
Corsair,  N.Y.  18 14,  Corsair,  Phil.  18 14,  Corsair,  Boston.  18 14, 
Lara,  Boston.  18 14,  Lara,  N.Y.  18 14,  Ode  to  Napoleon,  Boston. 
1814,  Ode  to  Napoleon,  N.Y.  1814,  Ode  to  Napoleon,  Phil. 
18 1 4,  English  Bards  (with  Ode  to  Napoleon),  Boston.  18 14,3 
Works  (2  vs.)4,  Boston.  1815,  Hebrew  Melodies,  Boston.  1815, 
Hebrew  Melodies,  N.Y.  18 15,  Hebrew  Melodies,  Phil.  18 15, 
Curse  of  Minerva,6  Phil.  18 16,  Siege  of  Corinth  and  Parisina, 
N.Y.  18 1 6,  Ode  on  the  S tap  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  and  Other 
Poems,  N.Y.  18 16,  Farewell  to  England  with  Other  Poems  (in- 
cluding Curse  of  Minerva),  Phil.  1816,  Works  (3  vs.),  Phil.  1817, 
Manfred,  N.Y.  1817,  Childe  Harold,  iii,  Boston.  1817,  Childe 
Harold,  iii  (with  Prisoner  of  Chillon,  Darkness,  etc.),  N.Y.  1817, 
Works,  N.Y.  [18 17,  Pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land  with  the  Tem- 
pest, a  fragment,  Phil.].6  1818,  Childe  Harold,  iv,  N.Y.  1818, 
Childe  Harold,  iv,  Phil.  1819,  Mazeppa  (with  Ode  to  Venice), 
Boston.      1820,  Works  (not  complete  to  date),  Phil.      182 1,  Don 

1  I  must  acknowledge  indebtedness  for  the  lists  kindly  sent  me  by  Miss  A.  S.  Mazyck, 
assistant  in  the  Charleston  Library,  by  Mr.  John  Thompson,  Mr.  N.  D.  Hodges  and  Mr. 
H.  L.  Koopman,  librarians  respectively  of  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati  and  Brown  University, 
and  by  Mr.  A.  P.  C  Griffin,  Chief  Bibliographer  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  Washington. 

-  First  American  from  the  third  London  edition. 

'  Note  how  remarkably  Byron's  London  "  year  of  revelry  "  and  glory,  1814,  affected 
American  publishers. 

4  "  From  the  London  edition,"  and  not  collected  by  American  enterprise. 

5  De  Silver  &  Co.,  8°.  Before  publication  in  England,  whether  with  or  without  Byron's 
consent  is  not  known.     [  ?  ] 

6  Spurious,  published  by  the  well  known  house  of  M.  Thomas. 


120  Appendix. 

Juan,  iii,  iv,  v,  N.Y.  182 1,  Marino  Faliero,  Phil.  182 1,  Prophecy 
of  I  )ante,  Phil.  182 1 ,  La  Profezia  di  Datite,1  N.Y.  182  1 .  Works 
(4  vs.),  N.Y.  1822,  Sardanapalus,  Two  Foscari,  Cain,  Bos- 
ton.     1822,  Sardanapalus,  Two  Foscari,  N.Y.      1822,  Cain,  N.Y. 

1823,  Island,  N.Y.  1823,  Vision  of  Judgment  (with  Southey's), 
N.Y.  1823,  Werner,  Phil.  1823,  Don  Juan,  ix-xi,  Albany.  1824, 
Don  Juan,   xv-xvi,   Phil.      1824,    Deformed    Transformed,    Phil. 

1824,  Works  (8  vs.),2  Phil.  1825,  Works  (8  vs.),  Phil.  1825, 
Correspondence  (earlier  letters),  Phil.  1825,  Don  Juan,  Balti- 
more. 1827,  Beauties  of  Byron,8  Phil.  1829,  Works  ("includ- 
ing suppressed  poems"),4  Phil.  1830,  Letters  and  Journals, 
edited  by  Thomas  Moore,  N.Y.  1832,  Works  (8  vs.),  Phil. 
1834,  Mazeppa,5  N.Y.  1835,  Works  (in  verse  and  prose),6  N.Y. 
1836,  Works  (in  verse  and  prose),  N.Y.  1836,  Conversations  with 
the  Countess  of  Blessington,7  Phil.  1836,  Works,  Phil.  1837, 
Works  (in  verse  and  prose),  N.Y.  1838,  Works,  Phil.  1839,  Works, 
Phil.  1843,  Works  (4  vs.),  Phil.  1844,  Works,  Phil.  1844, 
Hebrew  Melodies,  N.Y.  1846,  Sardanapalus  and  Werner,8  N.Y. 
1847,  Works,  N.Y.  1847,  Childe  Harold,  Phil.  1848,  Childe 
Harold,  Phil.  1848,  Werner,8  N.Y.  1849,  Tales  and  Poems 
("with  illustrated  engravings  on  steel"),9  Phil.  1850,  Works 
(4  vs.),  Cincinnati.10  185 1,  Works  (in  verse  and  prose),  Hartford. 
185 1,  Selected  Works  (Hours  of  Idleness,  English  Bards,  Hebrew 
Melodies),  Boston.  185 1  (?),  Works,  Boston.  185 1,  Correspon- 
dence with  Lady  Blessington,  Cincinnati.      185  ?,  Werner,11  N.Y. 

1  Translated  into  terza  rima  by  Lorenzo  da  Ponte,  a  well  known  teacher  of  Italian  in 
New  York. 

2  With  portrait,  as  usual  in  complete  editions. 

3  It  ran  through  at  least  ten  editions. 

4  Lake's  edition,  several  times  reprinted. 

5  In  The  Republic  of  Letters,  vol.  i. 

0  Halleck's  edition,  several  times  reprinted. 

7  In  Carey's  Library  of  Choice  Literature,  vol.  ii. 

8  In  Modern  Standard  Drama  Series. 

8  One  of  the  good  bits  of  book-making  by  that  once  famous  house,  Carey  &  Hart. 

10  Published  by  J.  A.  and  U.  P.  James.  The  present  head  of  this  publishing  house,  Mr. 
D.  L.  James,  has  kindly  furnished  me  with  a  memorandum:  "  If  this  was  printed  in  Cin- 
cinnati it  was  from  a  set  of  stereotypes  made  in  the  East.  My  impression  is  that  the  sheets 
were  printed  in  the  East,  probably  in  Philadelphia,  with  Cincinnati  imprint,  and  then 
bound  in  Cincinnati." 

11  In  French's  Standard  Drama. 


Appendix.  121 

185  ?,  Sardanapalus  (adapted  by  Charles  Kean),  N.Y.  1852, 
Works  (in  verse  and  prose),  Hartford.  1853,  Works  (8  vs.  in  4), 
Phil.  1853,  Works,  N.Y.  1853,  Works  (in  verse  and  prose), 
Hartford.      1856,  Don  Juan,  Phil.     185  ?,  Works  (10  vs.),  Boston. 

1864,  Childe  Harold,  Boston.       1864,    Works   (10   vs.),   Boston. 

1865,  English  Bards,1  N.Y.  1866,  Works,  Phil.  1868,  Works, 
Phil. 

This  list  may  be  compared  on  the  one  hand  with  Gen. 
J.  G.  Wilson's  privately  printed  list  of  American  editions 
of  Burns,  on  the  other  with  the  formidable  lists  of  Euro- 
pean editions  of  Byron  in  the  last  volume  (1904)  of  Mr. 
E.  Hartley  Coleridge's  Poems  of  Bvron. 

1 150  copies,  printed  half  in  half,  8°  and  4°. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


(A)      For    Byron's  influence,  besides    authors    already 
noted,  the  following  are  important : — 

Elze's  Biographie,  chap,  xi,  3d  ed.,  1886,  Eng.  trans.,  1872. 

Koppel's  Biographie,  Berlin,  1903. 

Bleibtreu's  Geschichte  der  englischen  Litter  at  ur. 

Taine's  Histoire  de  la  litterature  Anglaise. 

Robertson's  Hist,  of  Ger.  Literature  (use  index),  Blackwood,  1902. 

Gervinus'  Geschichte  des  igten  /ahrhunderts,  Bd.  viii. 

Hazlitt's  Spirit  of  the  Age. 

G.    Brandes,    Hovedstromninger   i   det  iq  de    Aarhundredes    Lit- 

teratur,  Copenhagen,  1890-4. 
Dr.  Otto  Weddingen,  Lord  Byron's  Einfluss  auf  die  europdische 

Litteratur  der  Neuzeit. 
Dr.  Otto  Weddingen,  Lord  Byron  und  die  russische  Litteratur, 

in  Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen  und  Littera- 
tur en,  lxix,  214. 
Byron  i  jego  IVieh,  Cracovie,  1896-7   (not  translated,  but 

cf  report  in  Ext  rait  du  bulletin  de  PAcademie  des  Sciences  de 

Cracovie}. 
Rudolph  Gottschall,  Byron  und  die  Gegenwart,  in  Unsere  Zeit, 

1866,  p.  481  ff. 
A.  Mickiewitz,  Goethe  und  Byron  in  his  Melanges,  v.  i,  1872. 
E.  P.  A.  Hohenhausen,  Rosseau,  Goethe  und  Byron,  Cassel,  1847. 
V.  E.  P.  Charles,  Vie  et  ifijluence  de  Byron  sur  son  epoche,  in  his 

Etudes  sur  /'  Angleterre  au  xixe  siecle,  1850. 
Henri  Blaze  de  Bury,  Tableaux  romantiques  de  litterature  et  d'art, 

essay,  Lord  Byron  et  le  Byronisme,  Paris,  1878. 
W.  J.  Clark,  Byron  und  die  romantische  Poesie  in  Erankreich,1 

Leipzig,  1 90 1. 

1  I  must  acknowledge  especial  indebtedness  to  this  very  able  dissertation. 


124  Bib  liography . 

Victor  Hugo,  Sur  lord  Byron  a  propos  de  sa  mort  (a  contemporary 
magazine  article  republished  in  his  prose  works). 

H.  Kraeger,  Lord  Byrone  Beziehungen  zu  Amerika,  in  Wissen- 
schaftliche  Beilage  zur  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  1897,  nos.  58-62. 

Washington  Irving,  "  Newstead  Abbey,"  in  Crayon  Miscellany. 


(B}  For  further  contemporary  criticism  on  American 
literature,  throwing  light  on  our  crude  conditions  or  our 
desire  for  literary  independence,  see,  especially  :  — 

C.  B.  Brown,  Preface  to  Edgar  Huntley,  1801. 

Fisher  Ames,  "  Essay  on  American  Literature,"  pub.  after  his 
death,  in  1809. 

W.  E.  Channing,  "  Remarks  on  a  National  Literature  "  (apropos 
of  a  "  Discourse  concerning  the  Influence  of  America  on  the 
Mind,"  delivered,  Oct.  18,  1823,  "at  the  University  in  Phila- 
delphia," by  C.  J.  Ingersoll)  ;   reprinted  in  his  works. 

Edward  Everett,  "Progress  of  Literature  in  America/'  1824. 

John  Neal,  "American  Writers"  (in  Blackwood's),  1824. 

Knapp,  Lectures  on  American  Literature,  1829. 

J.  G.  Whittier,  Preface  to  Legends  of  New  England,  1831  ;  (also 
his  early  reviews,  as  that  of  Evangeline,  1847). 

J.  G.  Verplanck,  American  History,  Art,  and  Literature,  1833  ; 
(also  his  "American  Scholar,"  1836). 

T.  Flint,  "  Literature  in  the  United  States  "  (in  London  Athe- 
nauni),  1835. 

R.  W.  Emerson,  "The  American  Scholar,"  1837. 

[?]  Commencement  Oration  on  "American  Literature,"  Cam- 
bridge, 1839. 

W.  G.  Simms,   Views  and  Reviews,  1845. 

H.  T.  Tuckerman,  Thoughts  on  the  Poets,  1846. 

E.  P.  Whipple,  Essays  and  Reviews,  1848. 

E.  A.  Poe,  Collected  Reviews  and  Essays  (his  lecture,  "  The 
Poets  and  the  Poetry  of  America,"  was  delivered  first  in  1843). 

T.  J.  Buckingham,  Personal  Memoirs,  1853. 


Bib  Hog  raphy .  125 

Walt  Whitman,  Preface  to  Leaves  of  Grass,  first  edition,  1855. 

H.  B.  Wallace,  Literary  Criticisms,  1856. 

V.  E.  P.  Charles,  Etudes  sur  la  litteraturc  et  les  mceurs  des  Anglo- 
Americains,  du  xix'  siecle,  185 1  ;  (note  also  the  prejudiced 
accounts  of  travels  by  Englishmen,  and  the  work  on  the 
American  People,  by  the  German,  F.  von  Raumer). 

Besides  the  above,  much  may  be  gleaned  from  the 
prefaces  and  biographical  notices  of  the  Anthologists,  from 
the  book  reviews  in  magazines,  and  from  magazine  articles 
on  American  literature,  for  which  latter  see  Poole's  Index. 
Much  bibliographical  information  may  be  found  in  Prof. 
B.  Wendell's  Literary  History  of  America,  and  in  Prof. 
W.  P.  Trent's  History  of  American  Literature.  See  also, 
American  Authors  (a  bibliography),  /ypj-iScjj,  by  P.  K. 
Folev,  Boston  (printed  for  subscribers,  1897)  ;  Check 
Lists  of  Bibliographies,  Catalogues,  Reference  Lists  of 
Authorities  of  American  Books  and  Subjects,  P.  L.  Ford, 
Brooklyn,  1889  ;  and  the  well  known  Dictionary  of  Amer- 
ican Authors,  by  Oscar  Fay  Adams. 

(  C)     The  following  Anthologies  are  the  most  important 
for  American  minor  verse,  and  some  of  it  is  very  minor  : — 

Beauties  of  Poetry,  British  and  American  (nineteen  native  writers 
represented),  Matthew  Carey  [Phil.],  1 79 1. 

American  Poems,  Richard  Alsop.  (This  was  the  first,  and  the 
last  of  a  proposed  series).     Litchfield,  Conn.,  1793. 

Columbian  Muse,  N.Y.,  1794. 

Specimens  of  the  American  Poets  ("  with  critical  notices"),  London, 

1822. 
Columbian  Lyre,  Glasgow,  1828. 

Specimens  of  American  Poetry,  S.  Kettel,  Boston,  1829. 
American  Commonplace  Book  of  Poetry,  G.  B.  Cheever,  Boston,  183 1. 


126 


Bibliograph  v . 


The  Rosary  (more  than  half  the  selections  are  from   American 

writers),  T.  J.  Buckingham,  Boston,  1834. 
The  Poets  of  America,  Keese  [Boston  ?],  1839. 
Selections  from  the  American  /Wis,  W.  C.  Bryant,  N.Y.,  1840. 
Poets  and  Poetry  in  America,  R.  W.  Griswold,  1842.    (The  Female 

Poets  made  their  debut  under  Mr.  Griswold's  chaperonage  in 

1849.) 
Cyclopedia  of  American  Literature,  E.  A.  and  G.  L.   Uuyckinck, 

N.Y.,  1855. 
A  Library  of  American  Literature,  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  1887 

(vol.  xi,  1890). 


VITA. 


THE  author  was  born  in  Plainfield,  N.J.,  January  25,  1876. 
He  was  a  pupil  in  the  public  schools  of  that  city  till  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  he  removed  with  his  parents  to  Bolton,  Mass., 
where  he  completed  his  preparation  for  college  alone.  He  en- 
tered Boston  University,  attending  chiefly  classes  in  English, 
Latin  and  Philosophy,  under  Professors  Butler,  Lindsay  and 
Bowne,  and  graduated  (A.B.)  in  1898.  He  was  then  a  student 
of  the  same  subjects  at  Harvard  University  under  Professors 
Kittredge,  Baker,  Morgan,  Marsh  and  James,  and  received  the 
A.M.  degree  in  1899.  During  a  portion  of  the  same  year  he  was 
instructor  in  Latin  in  Boston  University.  In  the  fall  of  1900  he 
went,  as  Fellow  of  Boston  University,  to  Gottingen.  Germany, 
where  he  heard  Professors  Morsbach,  Heine,  Roethe  and  Meyer, 
in  English,  Germanics  and  Comparative  Philology.  In  190 1-2 
he  attended,  at  Bonn,  lectures  on  English,  Germanics  and  Philos- 
ophy, under  Professors  Trautmann,  Biilbring,  Wilmanns,  Litzmann 
and  Erdmann.  In  1902-3,  as  Fellow  in  English  of  Columbia 
University,  he  attended  lectures  by  Professors  Price,  Trent  and 
William  H.  Carpenter.  The  author  is  glad  of  this  opportunity 
to  express  to  his  teachers  his  sincere  and  lasting  gratitude. 


ERRATA. 


PAGE. 

2 

For  Crecentius 

read  Crescentius. 

3 

"   Cela 

"     Cela. 

4 

"    sentimentidi 

"     sentimentidi. 

5 

"    Frederich 

"     Frederik. 

5 

"    Heinrich 

"     Henrik. 

5 

"    Digde 

"     Digte. 

7 

"    rape  lie 

"     rappelle. 

9 

"    Werner 

Wiener. 

10 

"    Decent  I' re 

"     Decembre. 

10 

(and  passim)  For  bourgeoise 

"     bourgeois. 

11 

For  Benjamin  Thompson 

Benjamin  Thomson. 

11 

"    Blackstone 

"     Blackmore. 

24 

"    Sir  Charles  Moore 

"    Sir  John  Moore. 

32 

"    much  and 

"     much. 

38 

"    Atheneum 

"     Athenxum. 

39 

"    Fables 

' '     Fable. 

40 

"    Cossens 

"     Cozzens. 

44 

"    England  and  Switzerland 

"     Subjugation  of  Switzerland 

47 

"    Greenville 

"     Grenville. 

59 

"    rather,  facile 

"     rather  facile. 

61 

"    Juvenalia 

"     Juvenilia. 

61 

"    closely 

"     close. 

67 

Dele  "  the  spot  on.'' 

67 

For  Grisnold 

read  Griswold. 

71 

[and  passim)  For  Matthews 

"     Mathews. 

75 

Insert  "many  "  after  "been  said." 

76 

Substitute  a  period  for  the  comma  after  "are  his." 

77 

For  Advertizer 

read  Advertiser. 

79 

"    Stanzas  to  Cadiz 

"     The  Girl  of  Cadiz. 

81 

"    Mrs.  S.  A.  Lewis 

"     Mrs.  E.  Anne  Lewis. 

(She  is  identical  with  the 

lady  mentioned  on  p.  83.) 

86 

For  Peacock 

read  Robert  Pollock. 

90 

"    imitations 

"     imitation. 

94 

'•   thou  has 

"     thou  hast. 

98 

"    dru  gge 

"     drudge. 

101 

"    mastadons 

"     mastodons. 

104 

"    as  Byron 

"     than  Byron. 

115 

"    aimed  at 

"     sought. 

123 

"    Melanges 

"     Melanges. 

123  and  125  For  Charles 

"     Chasles. 

123 

For  epoch 

' '     epoque. 

124 

"    By  rone 

"     Byrons. 

124 

"    J.  G.  Verplanck 

li     G.  C.  Verplanck. 

14  DAY  USE 

MTUKNTODBSKFKOMWH.CHBORK0W1 

LOAN  DEPT. 

» *** is  ^sr»%ar^ssf  below;1 °r 

^         IN0V5J96948 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


Ml 

■ 

" 

■LJyB 

